Origins
by SovereignGFC
Summary: The Reapers have been defeated. The galaxies are slowly rebuilding with help from the outsiders. All is not well, however, as mysterious forces are at work in reaction to developments during the Reaper War. Old foes return, new adversaries appear, and galactic society will be shaken to its very core. Rated M for intense sci-fi violence, language, & mild sexual content.
1. What Was Lost

**Chapter 1 – What Was Lost**

When one side of a conflict becomes incapable of offering meaningful resistance while the other rampages on, it is less appropriate to call it a fight; words like "slaughter" come to mind instead. In the case of Samantha Shepard's Pandora base, the transition from battle to rout happened relatively quickly. Biotics led by Jack and Brick overran defenses intended to handle wildlife or the occasional conventional soldier as opposed to highly-empowered individuals such as those trained by the KOMBT school. Many of Shepard's forcibly-impressed soldiers gave up and fled when faced with overwhelming odds—being career criminals, undesirables, and generally less-than-upstanding individuals instead of those who would have followed their Commander into Hell itself.

In a few hours, the base had been utterly trashed.

Turrets which once pointed their watchful barrels skyward drooped like wilted flowers, overheated from constant fire. Once-shiny armor plate now bore massive score marks from kinetic and energy impacts. Within the structure's confines, virtually everything taller than a meter had been obliterated to deny anyone shelter from mass-accelerator and blaster rounds crisscrossing the battlefield. One such round impacted a water fountain—removing the gum which had been stuck to its tray, and the tray. Really, the whole top of the water fountain. Still, it no longer had gum in it! If Commander Shepard has been conscious of it, she would have approved. That said, the loss of an opportunity to drop someone in the skag den might have brought about another tantrum…

The massive white flash later dubbed the Cosmic Cleansing Sphere passed over the wrecked base and its combatants without apparently doing much of anything, though as was later noted all Reaper technology under study simply disappeared.

Brick had to reign in the "Psychotic Biotics" as it became clear the battle, if it could be called that, was mostly over. A few of Shepard's mercenaries were foolish enough to keep fighting, though they went down fast. Between the Iron Abs and Jack's squad, only minor injuries were reported as the mop-up finished.

"Spread out, and find the Commander!" he barked.

Brick realized he could simply return to where he'd hammered the crazy woman into the ground, but somehow, he didn't want to see the galaxy's former paragon like that again. He hadn't heard from Jack either—she'd gone up to _Infinity_ to help Maya, Lilith, and others take the ship for some undetermined purpose. He waited, and hoped.

"Search party three to Brick! Shepard is alive."

[…]

Despite the sudden disappearance of the Reaper threat, Xytler's fleet remained as disorganized and chaotic as ever. The bounties and trinkets handed out by command to encourage Reaper-killing significantly reduced cohesion among a population already hungry for individual glory.

Xytler also realized without the Reaper/Harvester threat, his grip on power would be severely weakened. What was left of the Citadel Council had tolerated his rise due to an existential threat—now that threat was gone. As to the why, no one had any idea. Though, in what seemed to be an interesting coincidence, several of his gunnery chiefs (who had been appointed when Republic captains refused to carry out the controversial orders), personally overseen the controversial Base Delta Zeroes against mostly-civilian worlds sympathetic to Sapiens' Shield dropped dead of heart attacks soon after the "big white flash."

Struggling to organize his fleet without any overriding purpose, Xytler resorted to yelling over the comm. Each dress-down was tailored to exploit the weaknesses of the individual captain, but it boiled down to this. What is acceptable in wartime can constitute war crimes in peacetime. Even winning the war may not be enough to keep us out of the courtroom. Only I can protect you, so you better make sure I am in a favorable mood when your name comes up.

Whether the "following orders" defense would actually work remained another matter, but Xytler didn't emphasize that line of thought to his subordinates. Legal theory surrounding the theory of "command responsibility" went all over the map. Much ink had been spilled on this subject over the centuries of warfare that occurred within and between species.

Humans had seen the argument both successfully and unsuccessfully invoked. Among the turians, such a defense often incurred greater punishment, for permitting or encouraging subordinates to break laws violated the basic covenant between leader and led.

With the Reapers gone, many Republic captains were reasserting their authority vs. the bloodthirsty turian. The coincidental deaths of Xytler's representatives aboard their ships only encouraged them. Anna Erickson held back more than once—but this time she pulled no punches.

"First, he corrupted Samantha Shepard and Lilith Cashlin. Then, when Systems Alliance, Hierarchy, Union, and asari Republic soldiers refused to debase themselves doing his dirty work, he replaced them with the scum of the galaxy."

Said scum had been locked in several cargo bays aboard _Endless Calm_, some forcibly. Under ordinary circumstances, Republic officers would not have cooperated with an individual who massacred civilians, disregarded established protocols, and ran his fleet like a dictatorship. However, the principle of least-harm took precedence at this point. Republic forces were limited, had still needed to defend against an invader that would slaughter the entire galaxy they'd found themselves in when the monster took command, and faced with hybrid super-ships containing many Republic-driven technological advances that could give Star Destroyers serious competition. Any attempt to stop the carnage would have led to the deaths of many Republic personnel on top of those already marked for slaughter by the insane admiral. TGR captains bided their time by distancing themselves from Xytler and his acts, forcing him to replace them with his own men. With the sudden departure of Reapers from this plane of existence, that time had come.

Lilith's death was not known at the time to anyone except those who had ejected from the doomed _Infinity_. These individuals currently tumbled about in escape pods.

Lilith left this world believing some of her compatriots had followed her to the great beyond. However, this was not to be—Garrus, Marcus, Jack, and Moxxi crammed into the first pod. The second pod's occupants experienced a rougher ride, but it wasn't anything Michael, Maya, and Tannis hadn't experienced before in crazy drives on Pandora itself. The third pod auto-launched due to a hardware malfunction and it was the one which ended up being destroyed. Due to system damage, EDI was unable to determine whether the pod was occupied, so she just told Lilith what she knew (that the pod had launched and been destroyed in the ship's wake).

Accepting even dealing with the nutjob Xytler or his forces remained preferable to dying in the wilderness, both pods turned on their locator beacons. It was this which spurred Erickson's call to action.

"Now, we strike out to rescue those left behind in this trail of destruction!" she shouted. "Shepard may be beyond saving, but many of the crew of her ship were heroes in their own right—and they need our help."

Giving the order for the helm to take _Endless Calm_ almost suicidally deep into Pandora's atmosphere, she hoped the whole "weightlessness" portion of the mass effect technology could hold up. "Increase negative current to the eezo core!"

Of course, though _Endless Calm_'s lower mass would make maneuvering in the atmosphere easier, it would also cause the ship to be more affected by any opposing forces (like wind shear). Not designed to operate planetside, _Infinity_-class dreadnaughts possessed no repulsors or similar tech that might've otherwise stabilized Erickson's attempted rescue (aerodynamics not resembling a flying brick would have also helped). The ship's only method of maintaining lift was sheer speed, just as _Aspirations Toward Infinity_ had done, until it ultimately crashed on purpose.

Never mind the means of capturing the escape pods. Barely any thought had gone into this. Again, the specialization of the _Infinity_ design meant that items standard on Trans-Galactic Republic vessels of similar size or purpose remained absent. No tractor beams or hangers. However, a device built into the ship for nefarious reasons would have a chance to be used for a better purpose: the magnetic sled attachment points which were supposed to hold cryogenically frozen biotics in a rapid-deployment mechanism would instead hopefully be able to pull the pods to the hull. No guarantees about soft docking, but it beat either being tumble-dried in Pandora's atmosphere or a possible nasty landing on the planet's surface in the unmapped northern regions.

"So, basically we fly as close to the pods as possible, dial the magnets up to maximum, and hope no one dies if the pods slam into the hull."

Turning to her operations officer, Erickson gave a curt nod. "We know we'll catch the pods, it's just a matter of what we find when we open them up."

"Just be warned, ma'am, running the magnets at this power might buckle the hull if two of them start attracting or repelling each other as we are powering them way over spec" came the reply.

"Understood. How much longer until we reach them?"

"About two minutes before we're going to dip below the minimum altitude that we can expect to climb back up before hitting the mountains on the other side of the pole." Indeed, the ship's altitude decreased slowly but steadily as _Endless Calm_ hammered toward the lifepods.

"Noted." Erickson knew her ship might get splattered, but she had confidence in her ship and crew. Besides, given the Republic task force's apparent blasé passivity toward Xytler in the name of stopping the Reapers, _someone_ had to do something heroic.

"Is that what I think it is?"

Garrus might have been commenting on the time of day. Marcus couldn't believe these people.

"Does anything ever bother you?" he spluttered. "We're tumbling around in a metal box with no control, no sign of rescue, and most importantly, _no parachute!_" A look of panic spread across his face as he waved the mostly-pictographic lifeboat manual manual around. Indeed, no mention of parachutes could be found anywhere.

"Well," flanged the reply, "in this case I see no reason to worry. Not the most well-calibrated rescue, but it'll do."

"Would you just tell me what the hell is going on?" bellowed Jack. "Great, something's happening—"

The pod hit turbulence, shaking its occupants violently.

"Fuck!"

A rivulet of blood trickled down the side of Jack's face.

Meanwhile the mad rushing of air whipping past the pod changed as its pitch dropped lower. Something blocked out the light above the cylindrical pod, covering the top half in shadow. A tingling sensation overtook the quartet. Marcus would later compare it to a dentist's drill, except the vibration shot through his whole body instead of just his head.

"Look!"

Moxxi gestured wildly at a small readout showing a large object moving toward them. Very fast. The pod suddenly swung end-over-end much more rapidly than it had before—which had been a slow tumble. It felt as though their capsule was being yanked along by its floor, before all motion abruptly slowed.

CLANG.

A mechanical-sounding voice emanated from a speaker somewhere. "You have landed safely. Locks have disengaged and hatches may now be opened from the inside. Pod hatches will remain sealed in case of environmental hazards. Please check sensors before opening main hatch."

THWUCK.

"What was that?"

Turning to the strange tattooed woman, Moxxi shrugged. "I have no idea, sugar."

"Call me 'sugar' again, and I'll…"

"Jack, calm down!" retorted Garrus. "I'm sure she meant no offense."

"Is it just me, or are we upside-down?"

[...]

"There's something big headed our way. Looks like it should be friendly."

"Michael, what does it take to make you panic?" demanded Patricia Tannis. "You, of all people I have met…"

"Uhh, guys?" Maya interrupted to point at the windows. Windows which moments before had light streaming through them, but were now framed in shadow. "Whatever it is, it's much bigger than we—"

"Yaaaaaah!" cried the three in unison as their pod rocketed upward. For reasons unknown, Maya concentrated as hard as she could—her tattoos nearly blinded her companions as a flash of purple surrounded their lifeboat. The rapid motion ceased.

THWUCK.

[…]

"Pull up!" snapped Erickson, as if the looming mountain range on sensors wasn't enough incentive. Her helmsman simply rolled his eyes while simultaneously indicating the manual steering system which was pushed all the way forward to bring _Endless Calm_'s nose up.

"Armor status?"

"Holding steady ma'am but the power draw is taking energy away from engines!"

"Redirect!"

It took only five seconds for alarms to begin blaring, but the words scrolling across her terminal meant the mission was complete.

"WE HAVE THEM."

"Let's make a run for the closest fleet not under the control of a warmongering blood-drinker" said Erickson. "Maximum speed!"

Rerouting power from the ship's armor to its engines provided the boost in power _Endless Calm_ needed to begin ascending. Mountaineers years later swore they found paint chips from the vessel's hull at the tops of the Polar Peaks. The thinner air from higher up in Pandora's atmosphere reduced friction on the dreadnaught's hull, but also reduced its ability to radiate heat away since fewer particles existed to carry energy elsewhere.

"Hull temperature rising!" came an urgent query from operations. "Wave-guides compensating, but it will take time!"

_Reaper fire is far worse_ thought the Captain. _The hull should be fine._

[...]

Xytler could hardly believe what he was hearing.

Suddenly, these mewling quims from another galaxy grew consciences and were objecting to his leadership? He'd brought them through the greatest battle in the history of his galaxy!

"With all due respect, _admiral_, given the lack of any current threat we have no need to continue your severe methods." Benjamin Reid, captain of RNS _Sacrifice of Angels_, had plenty of respect for turians as a species, having seen how fiercely the Hierarchy had pushed back against the massively superior Reapers. This particular turian, though, he respected less and less.

"_Captain_ Reid, your objection has been noted, however…"

"I must object, and note my support for his position" interjected Captain Ratzik, RNS _Warrior's Honor_.

"Matt, while I appreciate the support, I really don't—"

"You are both right" chimed in Captain Isabelle Long, RNS _Veritas_. "We did what we had to in order to stop the Reapers, but now that the bloodrot is gone there is no need to leave the nanomachines raging!"

"Under the Trans-Galactic Republic Standardized Regulations of Military Law Section Six, Chapter Twelve, I hereby declare you, Maximilian Xytler, unfit for duty" finished Alexis Kazansky, RNS _Star Paladin_.

The next ten minutes served as an exemplary specimen of cross-cultural conflict. No turian would ever question his or her superiors in this manner. No provision existed in the turian military code for such an occurrence—intervention only came from above, not below. Subordinates were to trust the system and wait for those above their direct superiors to take action should anything untoward occur. The Trans-Galactic Republic military seemed almost, well, non-military to the regimented and highly disciplined turians.

As-written, the Status of Forces Agreement lacked detail on who was in charge. At its worst, this could have led to an open war between former allies—at the moment, since no one could draw formal authority from any agreements between the Citadel and the Republic, the conference devolved into a shouting match.

"You are a monster, a brute, and a poor excuse for a flag officer" fumed Reid.

"And you have no respect for your superiors, lack the ability to control your own emotions, keep your opinions to yourself, and get the job done!" spat Xytler.

"As far as my readings of the SOFA goes, there is nothing which forces us to remain under the command of…questionable individuals" replied Kanzansky. As she had joined the conference remotely, her image flickered and weapons fire could be heard in the background. A turn of her head to issue different orders not pertaining to the conversation. "Contain those hooligans." She sounded almost bored.

"What is going on? Why have you lost control of your ship?" snapped the admiral.

"I have not lost control of anything" came the reply. "Your men, on the other hand, seem to have lost something."

Behind her, TGR-uniformed personnel dragged stunned UDC-wearing turian and human soldiers by their feet. It seems not everyone had followed the "Same side, same colors" edict issued by Xytler before the fleet departed G-6 for G-3.

"We do _not_ wear the same colors, Maximilian Xytler, and for that, I am proud." Kanzansky disconnected without so much as a salute.

"Anyone who attempts to leave this room will be detained" said Xytler to the physically present Republic captains.

Without responding, each captain discreetly activated a small transmitter hidden on their person. Its purpose was to indicate that the individual wearing it was under duress, being held against their will, or otherwise in a situation where an overt call for help would not be possible. Alerts came up on the command screens of each ship, though Xytler had no way of knowing this. Republic ships in the battle group moved into predetermined positions, ready to initialize full-on alpha strikes if necessary. A Captain who activated his or her homing beacon was to be retrieved or killed (hopefully along with those who took him/her hostage). No middle ground.

Any battle would not be over quickly. Though the Republic "side" possessed four ships to Xytler's three, _Aspirations Toward Infinity_-class dreadnaughts were much more nimble than their Republic counterparts (despite mass effect technology). They wouldn't survive a direct beating from _Curator_ guns, but it was quite likely the big cruisers would be unable to deliver said beating.

"Admiral!" A bridge officer stuck his head into the conference room aboard UDCS _Menacing Hatred_. "Targeting scanners from our Republic escorts have locked onto us!"

"What?" demanded the turian. He stood in shock. "What have you done?" he bellowed.

"Nothing" replied Ratzik. "Merely informed our crews of your forced hospitality." As if to exaggerate the situation's ridiculousness, his booted feet appeared on the table.

"Sensor contacts, Captain Erickson!" _Endless Calm_ used its hyper-zero drive to arrive at the outer edge of Pandora's star system. There, it found a fleet of seven ships in a bit of a standoff.

Erickson wasn't about to start anything, but her mind moved into overdrive. _If the Republic shoots first, they will likely win since Force-Fire-Over-Ride wasn't installed on the Infinities_._ If the hybrids somehow shoot first, the_ Curators_ are in deep trouble since they won't be able to physically hit their opponents._

"Set our weapons!" barked Xytler. "Aim for the closest Star Destroyer, but _do not fire!_"

It also appeared none of the would-be combatants had yet taken notice of _Endless Calm_ either. The four Star Destroyers were arranged in a "corners" formation around the side-by-side _Aspirations Toward Infinity_ class flying guns, which themselves were slightly staggered. One forward (Xytler's flagship _Menacing Hatred_), two back (_Enveloping Darkness_, _Mailed Fist_).

In a flash, blue lanced from the sides of each _Curator_-class Star Destroyer, landing perfect hits on unsuspecting _Infinities_. In a reversal of _Revenant_'s fate, it was the enemies of the Republic who found themselves unable to fire. Activation of each Captain's Distress Device enabled Force-Fire-Over-Ride which permitted Republic guns to ignore Identify-Friend-Foe tags. _Darkness_, _Fist_, and _Hatred_ possessed no such feature and in any case found their computers fried by the massive ion blasts launched from their Star Destroyer escorts.

"Treacherous thugs!"

Xytler could do no more than shake his fist—he was pretty sure trying to physically stop the Republic shipmasters from departing would result in more weapons-fire.

"We'll be leaving" said Reid.

"It wasn't nice seeing you" continued Long.

"Yeah, don't bother to keep in touch" added Ratzik.

Republic assault shuttles retrieved their officers, while _Curtana_ heavy bombers delivered precision strikes to disable weapons systems and engines aboard the trio of UDCS dreadnaughts. The attack had been so sudden no messages were transmitted to other United Defense Council fleets or battle groups. Republic jamming stopped any transmissions made after the lightning strike.

"So much for avoiding the blood-drinker" mused Erickson. She hadn't known the task force of four Star Destroyers had been combined with UDC vessels, nor was she expecting to see her now apparently former allies be lit up by Star Destroyer weapons fire. The whole laser/ion shield thing still vexed scientists—how to defend against both simultaneously without carrying a whole separate set of shields for each? No military ever considered the extra power draw or space used in such a design worth it, so ships were left unable to defend themselves against the disabling effect of the blue bolts.

In other battle groups, Republic crews and captains turned on, imprisoned, and disabled their United Defense Command counterparts. Some battles initially tilted toward the UDC, but Republic forces strategically retreated to areas controlled by friendly interests, creating numerical advantages too large to overcome. Swarms of Republic fighters dealt with _Infinities_ just as they would have with smaller ships displaying similar levels of maneuverability. Since the dreadnaughts carried no fighters, mounted zero point defense guns, and were designed with the singular purpose of killing Reapers, defeating them wasn't as difficult as was originally thought.

[...]

"We need a medical capsule, now!"

Brick had pinned the insane Captain Shepard under an artillery shell she'd intended to use to blow up her own base on Pandora (with herself inside). Her Cerberus cybernetics, Alliance enhancements, and natural toughness were keeping her alive, but only just considering everything below mid-chest had been crushed.

Now, her eyes barely opened, her mouth grimaced in a silent scream.

And what was that stench? "Did something die in here?" demanded a corpsman.

"The Captain's death will be on us if we don't move quickly" snapped his superior.

The disabled artillery shell was carefully lifted, and the source of the smell became apparent. A wrinkled, black, _thing_ lay next to the broken Spectre. The medical corpsman estimated its length as half an average human's height. It made small movements, as much as a blob of, well, _something_ could and emitted small noises when approached.

"What the hell is that?" demanded a Marine escort.

"I'm a doctor, not an encyclopedia!" said the senior medical officer. "We'll take both of them—put Shepard in the capsule and get a second container for the, thing."

A box was found for "that giant raisin thing" while Shepard was carefully lifted into a medical pod. The two medical personnel made a best-effort to keep as much of Shepard's lower body as possible, though given that her legs were shattered, her lower torso pulverized, and thus various innards had ended up not inside anymore, the task tried their patience. Temporal life support systems were hugely expensive, could only operate for a few minutes on energy cell power, and were extremely temperamental. However, given the state of Shepard's body, it was the only way to even have a minute chance of keeping her alive. Even plugged into the MedEvac transport, the pod massively taxed the ship's power systems, cutting speed and acceleration in half.

Not that there were any concerns—all hostile activity on Pandora had ceased with the destruction of the Reapers, and Republic-on-UDC asskicking had not yet reached Pandora proper, though it was well on the way.

[…]

Imprisoned aboard their own ships, the crews of _Darkness_, _Fist_, and _Hatred_ found themselves dragged behind Star Destroyers headed to Pandora. With mass effect technology, it became trivial for _Paladin_, _Honor_, and _Angels_ to pull the disabled dreadnaughts in their wake.

Aboard Erickson's _Endless Calm_, the escape pods had been detached from the hull using space tugs packed aboard _Sacrifice of Angels_.

The survivors were brought together in the main briefing room just off _Endless Calm_'s bridge. "Was this supposed to be some kind of test of patience?" demanded Patricia Tannis. "We…"

"Dude, relax. These pods have air and provisions for weeks just in case you land in the middle of a fucking forest full of killer bees or something."

Jack realized exactly how ridiculous that sounded, but hey, it was true. For all its flaws, the UDC did incorporate effective escape vehicles. It may have had something to do with a re-use of Republic designs, though, as the UDC did not seem to care much about the welfare of its crews.

On the other side of the conference table, Maya briefed Erickson and several other Republic officers, relaying the tale of Tannis' theory, Lilith's sacrifice, and the resulting destruction of _Aspirations Toward Infinity_.

"In the end, Lilith came around." Maya sniffed and failed at holding back a few tears. As much as she got a good belly laugh out of bandit guts, big game hunting, and general melee, this situation was different. Knowing where comedy ended and insanity began was the key to avoid becoming what Shepard had transformed into. She hoped the old Commander still lived in that husk somewhere, and speaking of Shepard…

"Priority transmission to any UDC or Republic forces in the area: Medical code blue! We have Shepard, and she's a code blue."

Ten minutes ago Erickson would have politely begged off receiving the patient. Having heard Maya's perspective, she now felt helpless that her fancy Reaper-killer no longer possessed the sophisticated surgical facilities of, ironically, the "less-advanced" _Curator_ Mark I's. Due to lack of casualties stemming from the inability of any commonly encountered foe (pre-Reaper) to seriously threaten the Republic's heavy cruisers, the Mark II design downgraded medical capabilities significantly. It was further assumed that dedicated medical ships would accompany fleets in any situation where mass casualties were likely.

As a result, "Commander Blue" ended up turfed to _Veritas_. Her capsule made it to the primary surgical suite with seconds to spare on its integrated power system. Immediately a swarm of nurses, doctors, and other assorted personnel descended upon it. It wasn't known how long a patient could be kept in stasis like this without adverse effects, but given that in order to operate parts of the patient had to be brought back to real time to operate (creating aging differences, however minute, in the range of hours or at most days), it was considered best practice to limit the time the patient "straddled."

A short time later, Maya and Anna arrived by shuttle.

Shepard's nurse intercepted them outside in the waiting room.

"Do you really want to know?"

Sounding indignant, Maya almost put her hands on her hips. "Yes, Nurse Marilyn, I do want to know."

"Her legs have been completely crushed. Her lower torso is also severely damaged—most of her body below mid-chest has been turned into paste. She is currently in temporal stasis to stave off a death by shock due to massive blood loss and blunt trauma."

A commlink beeped, followed by a tinny voice emanating from a nurse pager. "Nurse to the OR; all hands on deck, _we're losing her_."


	2. Cracked Mirror

**Chapter 2 – Cracked Mirror**

As the Republic task force consolidated its control over the Gamma-Three Galaxy, more questions swirled than answers. Why did the Reapers just disappear? Was it all worth it? Would breaking the intergalactic travel taboo change things for better, or worse? And what would the Republic proper have to say about its elite soldiers teaming up with someone who turned out to be a murderous thug?

Lilith Cashlin's selfless act redeemed her to all but the hardest of heart. The loss of one dreadnaught paled in comparison to the utter elimination of a threat which would have otherwise caused a long, hard slog. As for what actually occurred when the most powerful Siren in the galaxy phase-slammed a huge ship into Pandora's north pole, well, no one had the slightest idea. Even Patricia Tannis, who correctly predicted a "cataclysmic event" would be unleashed by this action could not even begin to hypothesize as to the "whys" or "whats."

One noted change came through the deaths of many officers directly under the command of Maximilian Xytler, himself now a "restricted person" aboard RNS _Star Paladin_. Said ship had become a holding ground for those deemed dangerous, criminal, or otherwise undesirable. While dealing with the "Rannoch issue," Alexsis Kazansky ended up taking several quarians into custody. Such individuals included quarian _admirals_—including Admiral Han'Gerrel vas Neema (refusal to follow orders) and Admiral Daro'Xen vas Moreh (undermining the war effort).

"The defendant pleads not guilty" intoned Han'Gerrel vas Neema's Judicial Advocate.

Han'Gerrell vas Neema requested to be tried before a ship's captain rather than the usual Republic standard of judge-and-jury. This proved fortuitous in a way as the Military Adjudication Corps within the Republic's task force was quite short-handed (given that crew discipline was not considered to be a serious issue on the mission). Thus, the task fell to any "suitably unprejudiced, competent Captain in good standing."

It was agreed to utilize an inquisitorial approach, leaving the entire outcome up to that single Captain (as would have been the case in a quarian trial). The appointment of a Judicial Advocate rested on a technicality (that all accused must be represented) and a desire to keep the accused appraised of the process from beginning to end as it would be inappropriate for the presiding Captain to provide rolling updates.

Hence, Hans'Gerrel's fate rested in the hands of Isabelle Long. She had neither been present at Rannoch nor was she in contact with any of those involved, which cleared her on the impartiality front. The trial process was simple. She read the charges to the disgruntled quarian, spent several hours reviewing the evidence in her private chambers, and then rendered a verdict. The plea at trial opening offered the accused an opportunity to skip the fact-finding phase if he or she so chose by admitting guilt (leaving only sentencing). Admiral Gerrel refused to do so, however.

Long gave a brief summary of the facts before she pronounced her decision. "Admiral Han'Gerrel vas Neema, you stand accused of violating the Trans-Galactic Republic Standardized Regulations of Military Law which you were required to uphold while under the command of a Trans-Galactic Republic officer. The facts clearly show that as a member of the 'Fleet of Particular Justice' or 'Tide of Implacable Vengeance,' you did in fact with full knowledge of the responsibilities which came with it, pledge to obey the orders of your task group commander, a member of the Trans-Galactic Republic Navy."

Gerrel knew he was probably screwed. The quarian Admiralty Board had rolled the military portions of the Migrant Fleet into the Republic's whatever-they-called-it without settling the "geth issue." A geth fleet had approached to within what was supposed to be a no-fly-zone around the greater Migrant Fleet, desiring additional information about the rapid advancements noted in quarian starship technology. Without knowing its intent, and, following quarian custom of "No talk, we shoot" Gerrel ordered his ships to fire on the errant geth vessels. Of course, firing on the geth only made the situation even more hostile than it was to start, and RNS _Star Paladin_ threatened to lay waste to any active combatants, geth or quarian. He refused to follow the orders of Republic Captain Alexis Kazansky who demanded _both_ sides stop firing. Admiral Gerrel had ordered the attack on the geth to continue until _Star Paladin_ disabled several of his ships.

Due to this dust-up, he was hauled aboard and confined.

"The Trans-Galactic Republic Standardized Regulations of Military Law Section 3, Chapter 3, specifically states that any lawful order by a superior officer must be obeyed. The directive from Captain Kazansky was both lawful under Section 3, Chapter 1 and from the perspective of this Court delivered from a _de facto_ superior officer to a principal subject to the SRML. Thus, your refusal to obey that order, no matter how heartfelt or convicted, violates Republic law which you were bound to. Your actions incited those who looked to you for leadership to commit acts which violated the SRML. This is considered to be a series of deeds beneath the station of an officer, as outlined in Section 3, Chapter 7. Thus, you are found guilty and sentenced to two standard Republic years of confinement."

Unlike in the case of Tali'Zorah vas Normandy, no interruptions occurred, no names were shouted, and no pleas from others were made on behalf of the Admiral. Fully aware any outbursts could render him charged under other portions of Section 3 Chapter 7, Gerrel wisely kept his mouth shut.

In stark contrast stood the trial of Admiral Daro'Xen vas Moreh. She had hoped a judge/jury and adversarial process would be more beneficial to her. In a way, it was, as the prosecutor offered a relatively lenient plea bargain. After some deliberation with her appointed council, Xen opted to reject the offer. This proved costly.

Some of Xen's active research related to anti-geth viruses. This was an issue on its own (since the Republic had already ordered a geth-quarian cease-fire any action undermining such violated standing orders, leading to the charges). What was worse is that later investigations into the near-destruction of _Revenant_ revealed several algorithms from Xen's viruses had been incorporated into the "Keyboard Pounder MNKY-1" which crippled the Republic's flagship. Under intense questioning, Xen denied having anything to do with the development of MNKY-1, but admitted leaving the pieces she wrote available "for any quarian seeking to end the geth threat" to use (that is, in a very public place—akin to a "file locker"). Given that Sapiens' Shield had already infiltrated the Migrant Fleet, easy availability of viruses containing poly-executable code that would run on Republic systems led to rapid exploitation of such programs. Every war has traitors, and this one was no exception as Sapiens agents worked both within the Migrant Fleet and Republic Navy to bring down the newcomers' heaviest warship.

Everyone knew how _that_ turned out. _Revenant_ now hung near the Citadel, mostly empty but heavily guarded lest anyone attempt to salvage its advanced technology. Though the ship no longer rated battle-worthy, it remained theoretically possible (albeit massively expensive) to refit/rebuild the damaged hull, which remained basically in one piece despite the beatings it received.

Ultimately, the sixteen-member jury consisting of both Republic and Citadel military members returned a conviction on Section 3, Chapter 3 (Xen's research continued in defiance of orders), Section 3, Chapter 7, and Section 6, Chapter 8 (negligent behavior). However, the jury was unable to convict on either Section 4 Chapter 4 or Section 4 Chapter 5; no evidence was presented that showed Xen herself permitted agents of Sapiens' Shield access to the viral code. Furthermore, no evidence came to light proving she had reason to believe that placing the code in a supposedly quarian-controlled server would permit enemy access (spies, being spies, had not yet been caught), so she could not be convicted of aid-by-negligence.

"The defendant, Admiral Daro'Xen vas Moreh, is found GUILTY of the following counts…and thus is sentenced to three-and-a-half standard Republic years of confinement."

Thus continued the difficult task of applying Republic military law to those accustomed to different standards. Some cases were cut-and-dried, like Gerrel. Others, similar to Xen, were not so easy—quarian law would have left this completely up to any captain (not constrained by words like "reason to believe"—gut-checks often ruled).

As datastreams transmitted from Gamma-Three arrived in offices on the Citadel, Grayson felt sicker and sicker. The Republic had already cooperated with a civilian/military government whose policies became more and more oppressive as time passed in the galaxy he currently resided in. That, if possible, things degraded even further while away on a distant mission turned his stomach.

"What have we allowed ourselves to become?" he asked of Adrien Victus, the turian Councilor. Turians knew nothing but "total war," such that execution squads (called "hastatim") roamed the civilian centers of conquered territory, rounding up those willing to surrender while shooting those who resisted.

Victus knew Xytler could be unorthodox, and brutal tactics were not something Victus objected to automatically. However, employing criminals and attempting to hijack starships (through the "biotic sleds") went too far.

"We did what was necessary" replied the turian. "The Reapers had to be stopped. Think of the bloodshed had the Republic's forces not intervened—casualties might have reached trillions."

Talking heads in the media latched onto the topic. Those more sympathetic to Xytler's unique methods compared his actions to the use of nuclear weapons in Earth's past. Those less inclined pointed to Sam Shepard's refusal to hand the Collector base to Cerberus—victory (stopping attacks on Systems Alliance colonies) was achieved without handing the keys to a madman. And then there was the simple fact that it was neither Xytler's terror fleet nor the Republic's super-colossal dreadnaught that dealt the final blow—it was the completely inexplicable cataclysm set off by a Siren, a Vault, and a starship. Each problem ended up being solved by something unexpected—the Reapers were a threat, until the Republic showed up. The combined fleet overstretched trying to defend multiple galaxies, suddenly Reapers exit left.

"It's like we're looking through plate-glass that took a couple rounds" commented an editorial in the Alliance Military Times. "You can recognize what's beyond the window, but it doesn't exactly look the same; it's distorted. Just like all of us looking at ourselves…"

[...]

For those more concerned with the science-y portion of the goings-on, even larger questions loomed. The event now being called "Cosmic Cleansing Sphere" correlated strongly with the deaths of certain individuals, mainly those working directly under Admiral Maximilian Xytler. It also seemed to have precipitated the disappearance of all Reapers, from whole Reaper dreadnaughts down to Reaper fragments being studied in places as far away as the Citadel itself.

The remains of "Prime Vault" had been cordoned off to prevent looters or other malcontents from removing key evidence prior to extensive professional analysis. Due to the lawless nature of Pandora, such restrictions were enforced via "shoot-on-sight," a most uncomfortable proposition for both Republic and Citadel personnel. Such hesitation tended to rapidly dissipate on first meeting the ranting, raving bandits who roamed Pandora's wilderness.

Patricia Tannis ended up being the head scientist at was called "The Altar" (after translated Eridian script found at the site). Scans indicated that a complex latticework of tunnels and caverns extended far below Pandora's surface, beginning at the site of the _Infinity_'s crash. The tunnels extended too far for mapping tools to generate a complete picture from the surface.

"We know that on impact, temperatures were high enough to liquefy Eridum" she dictated into a recording rod (much more durable and useful than those stupid ECHO recorders). "Not the 'slag' that is a by-product of Eridum processing, but actually turning the Eridum _itself_ into a liquid form!"

Based on estimates from previous scans and extrapolations pulled from the wreckage, the Prime Vault/Altar stood at least 900m high before a dreadnaught plowed into it. It had been constructed from pure Eridum, giving off a soft purple glow. Tannis believed most of the Eridum was consumed by whatever reaction Lilith set off (hence the apparently too-small quantity of leftover Eridum at the site given the estimated size of the former structure). Unfortunately, the vanishing temple also took with it many inscribed writings from its surface, so the archeologist had to work with the handful of lower-resolution photos taken by intrepid passers-by. Needless to say, only so much data could be compiled even with superresolution techniques. Republic sensors might have been able to do a better job, but the wacky Tannis refused to associate with "intellectual inferiors." Not that it mattered—no Republic captain was going to wasted his/her ship's processing time on the strange theories of an insane (though harmless) scientist. The more Republic personnel saw of Pandora, the more they wondered if the Gamma-Three galaxy was even worth the effort put into saving it, assuming Pandora represented a typical Gamma-Three world.

Tannis wanted to send an expedition into the caverns in the near future—though she refused to even contemplate setting foot there herself. "Such tasks are for those whose minds are lesser able to grasp trends of cosmic significance" she huffed, when a sardonic Republic trooper assigned to guard the site asked why she didn't just pack a rucksack for herself.

"Eggheaded boffin" he muttered in response.

Frustrated, she used a Republic communicator to get in touch with Maya. The Siren had helped her round up research notes she'd scattered all around Sanctuary in a fit of paranoia over fear of Handsome Jack (or his agents). She'd also gotten assistance from Lilith before, so she figured she might be able to convince the remaining Siren to do her bidding once more.

"You're not going to send me looking for another Vault, are you?" demanded the blue-haired woman. "Because if you are, I'm _not_ coming down there!"

"That is definitely not what I had in mind!" Technically, crawling through cramped passageways was not Vault-hunting.

"Also, unlike past times, you're gonna have to wait" intoned the Siren in a serious tone. "Commander Shepard is still in serious condition up here."

"If you place more importance on a dead woman than the advancement of matters of great importance, I will wait."

Were it not for knowing Patricia Tannis wasn't exactly "all there," Maya likely would have murdered her for the Shepard comment. She'd killed people for less, but in spite of that she still felt she could look in a mirror and see herself, not some twisted caricature (pre-redemption Lilith, Xytler, and insane Shepard— the list went on). Despite her last interaction with Sam Shepard being an adversarial one, if Lilith could find herself, the Commander might just do the same if she ever woke up. Currently, a flash-copy of the ersatz former paragon's brain had been uploaded to _Veritas_' computer core, which used a significant portion of its processing power and storage space. It was likely that the strength and clarity of memories within Sam's brain would have degraded during the time she was in stasis (why this happened no one knew—stasis was supposed to mean "unchanging" after all).

In theory, a complete clone could be made using the flash-copy, though without frequent (weekly) re-imagings of core memories the clone's mental stability would deteriorate, leading to insanity. Never mind not having the equipment for such procedures. Looking back, Maya couldn't quite understand how a society so advanced could have been so thoroughly unprepared for all the things that had happened recently. Still, when you think all you are doing is getting the mail from the end of the driveway, generally all you need is a pistol to fend off skags. Not a pistol, assault rifle, rocket launcher, three health kits, two personal enhancement devices, and a shield module as if one was going up against Hyperion itself. Given what was expected vs. what actually happened, the Republic's poor preparation was somewhat excusable. No one could have predicted their fleet would be called upon to act as a galactic savior against overwhelming outside force!

Since Brick (Why did he go so far? Questions would be asked) had smashed Sam's lower torso almost beyond saving, Republic surgeons had to replace what no longer functioned (or no longer existed). Below the breasts but above the navel, reconstruction had begun.

First, work began on connecting torn blood vessels to a system that would allow Shepard's cybernetic heart to pump normally while running her blood through even more advanced processing systems than she'd been given by Cerberus that would be included in her new artificial lower torso/legs. Once tubing connected time-frozen blood vessels, the filter modules themselves were installed. Such modules would make Shepard immune to any and all known chemicals. They would also assist in fighting off infections while minimizing inflammatory response by taking much of the load off the immune system, instead letting nano-machines kill off unwanted pathogens. These tiny soldiers could even be deployed throughout the rest of her body (organic and not) to remove disease. Samantha Shepard was never planning on having children, which was probably a good thing as a functioning uterus was not on the menu. Neither were ovaries as their function would be fulfilled by bio-fiber glandular replacements mounted inboard of the dual filtration systems.

Speaking of the general lower regions of the body, surgeons ensured she would (if she desired) be able to remain sexually functional despite lacking the usual innards associated with the biological imperative for such activity. A clever system routed any fluids resulting from any "horizontal physical training" into the filtration systems where nutrients were extracted and the rest processed as waste.

The Commander was already at least 30% cyborg to begin with, so by the time the surgery was done she would be far more machine than _Homo sapiens_. Organic nutrition systems were still required, mostly due to the upper half of her body. Her stomach was beyond saving, so the replacements continued starting at the end of the esophagus. The Republic had quite a bit of experience with Human Replica Droids—automatons so life-like that only the most advanced medical scans could reveal their artificial nature. Nor would interacting with one immediately tip someone off—they breathed, ate, slept (or "slept"), and even bled! Combining the organic realism of HRDs with top-of-the-line combat skeletons, the Republic was able to build an army of super-soldiers. Able to, but declined to do so—with the technology kept under wraps. The blatant contradiction of building super-soldiers in a society whose priorities were everything but war, combined with the ethics (or lack of) surrounding creation of sapient beings forced only to kill put a kibosh on any attempts to make use of Combat Human Replica Droids.

However, the use of parts of these plans to rebuild Samantha Shepard posed no dilemmas at all. Since her memories had been temporarily stored within the databanks of _Veritas_, it was a semi-trivial matter to pull all references to her latent self-image in pursuit of a faithful reconstruction. Unlike some women who saw themselves as fatter, uglier, or somehow more physically flawed than they actually were, Sam Shepard simply saw herself exactly as she was: one of the most battle-hardened, tough, and toned examples of cyber-enhanced humanity to ever walk the galaxy. Had she been of lesser self-opinion, the plastic surgeons responsible for her new lower torso, hips, and legs might have asked for donations of other memories containing the Commander (technically, Captain, but everyone called her Commander and she didn't seem to mind) to affect a proper reconstruction.

Without a uterus to work around, the lower portion of her new body did not have to conform to the same physical arrangement inside as the human default, permitting the inclusion of advanced filtering systems and backup inorganic power cells. Her hip-to-leg flexibility was deliberately limited to prevent unnatural extensions of limbs, and in any case the HRD-derived lower torso had mostly standard ranges of motion. Hidden resonant inductive couplings permitted recharging these cells conventionally, or they could be powered up by an organic-electric conversion system controlled by the brain.

Such organic nutrition would be delivered in much the same way as a small-intestine-large-intestine system, though with much less length to the bowel. In lieu of over twenty feet of small followed by five feet of large, the entire system fit into enhanced bio-tubing measuring less than ten feet from end to end. Clearly, such a system would give away the heavily modified nature of Samantha Shepard's body, being about a third the natural length, but there existed no reason to try to conceal her hybrid nature.

Some debate occurred over whether to conceal compartments, weapons, or tools within her hips, thighs, and legs. Ultimately, the "naturalists" won out, leaving Sam's limbs mostly constructed of poly-alloy bone and turbo-charged bio-synthetic fast-reaction muscle fibers without any "secret smuggling pockets." Such enhanced musculature further exaggerated the disconnect between limbs seemingly too slender to hold such power and the ability to kick through reinforced concrete.

The whole package received synthskin coverings tougher than even Systems Alliance Heavy Skin Weave. Fully organic in appearance and matched to Shepard's overall skin tone, the covering would in fact bleed if subjected to enough force (something between a vibro-knife and anti-materiel round ought to do it). It was thought by some that only those who took certain pride in their physical appearance shaved their legs. How wrong this was—soldiers stuffed into very tight insulating/protecting bodysuits could end up with nasty cuts from impressed leg hairs over days of combat. Thus, the Paragon of the Citadel did in fact shave her legs out of military necessity—a chore no longer necessary due to receiving legs which no longer grew hairs on them. Downside to those legs: no tanning. Not that Samantha Shepard ever went to the beach, or tanned…

Overall, a team of twenty surgeons, nurses, and specialists assisted by hyper-sophisticated medical droids took thirty hours to put Samantha Shepard back together. Remarkably quick for such a complex procedure, though most of the inorganic components had already been assembled and simply had to be integrated. To ensure systems operated properly, only the lowest parts of her brain would be stimulated at first (ensure good nerve signals and autonomous control of the new parts). Estimates pegged at least four months before she could be fully awoken safely.

_Durius, Melius, Velocius, Fortior._


	3. Family Values

**Chapter 3 – Family Values**

"In the name of Montgomery, our patriarch, visionary, and founder, this meeting is brought to order."

"Order" might be stretching it a little. Or a lot. Jakobs corporate meetings never remained civil very long as inevitably some bad blood between two or more factions would surface, leading to sides-taking, alliance-forming, and general mayhem.

Family-owned often served as a "warm-fuzzy" marketing phrase, something that Jakobs had exploited for its nearly three centuries of existence. Of course, the advertisements never revealed exactly what kind of "family" was meant by this. More akin to feuding Mafiosos than anything else, the tree of Jakobs nevertheless kept growing despite its tendencies of one root to strangle another.

Originally, each member of the family gained a share in the company by birthright. This made sense when the company was smaller and virtually everyone whose blood, sweat and tears went into the product line had the last name "Jakobs," but over the years the family and company grew much larger. This demanded share split after share split to ensure each newborn received his or her birthright of at least one full share. As a result, those with few shares tended to band together against bullying by those whose holdings were more valuable, since no current member of the family was going to accept a dilution in his or her voting power just to accommodate a baby. Therefore, someone born with one share might find him/herself in possession of ten shares on their fifteenth birthday, and twenty shares ten years after that.

Jakobs previously backed the "JVLN" (Jakobs, Vladof, Hyperion) alliance to spread corporate influence to other galaxies. Given the current situation in which JVLN met stinging defeat at the hands of others not even from the intended target galaxy, it would probably be best for the men of wooden guns to make nice with _somebody_ lest the "Trans-Galactic Republic" come knocking loudly. Hence this meeting.

"We are gathered here today" (many sighs from the floor at the opening cliché) "to determine the fate of our company, and our family. The two have been synonymous for centuries. Bear that in mind when casting votes! As goes the company, so goes the family. For family, for company!"

The Chairman of the Board waited for raucous cheering, chanting, and stamping to die out before continuing.

"The joint venture we created with Hyperion and Vladof" (some boos erupted from the crowd) "has turned south. Other powers may seek to punish us for our involvement in galaxies far, far, away. The Board has been presented with three resolutions that are before us today: Strengthen our ties with our current partners" (some cheers, some boos), strike out on our own, or send envoys to the MALITOR Alliance" (sustained boos). "I know this may seem a lot to ask, but remember that the enemy of our enemy is our friend!"

Each faction would present a case to the Board and shareholders for fifteen minutes. Then, a discussion period would follow for thirty permitting questions-and-answers in a two-minute format (thirty second question, one-and-a-half minute answer). Following, the first vote would be taken. The two options with the most votes would move to the elimination round and the process would repeat. Politics had demanded the two-step process rather than allowing for elimination of all but one choice even if one of the proposals commanded majority support on the first ballot. The same considerations required any final proposal to achieve approval by 60% of shareholders and a majority of the Board before being adopted. Convoluted rules and procedures came as naturally to the Jakobs family as the crafting of firearms did, hence the slight delay picking up their "contractors" (Vault Hunters) who cleaned up the mess at Jakobs Cove—an incident, by the way, which never officially occurred.

The proposals were numbered one, two, and three. A random-number-generator would decide the first two speakers, with the last being determined by whoever hadn't been previously selected. Specific rules of conduct required speeches be approved in advance by the Chairman, who had the power to act as a referee (lest a following speaker deviate to, for instance, attack a proposal preceding his/her own). Again, this was all theoretical—it would be considered fortunate if there were fewer than five altercations on the auditorium floor. No weapons were permitted in the shareholder meeting, just as no disorderly conduct was to be tolerated. Of course, the likelihood of such rules being followed or even enforced remained quite small, as several blatantly obvious holsters could be seen from the Chairman's podium…

"The first proposal to be read will be that of dropping out of the venture and acting independently" intoned Chairman Bill Arkansas Jakobs. "The Chair yields to Bart Jakobs."

"The first rule on Pandora: Always trust the gun at your side! For years, Jakobs has stood above all others in providing the most powerful, reliable, and easily-maintained weapons to loyal customers across our galaxy."

(_Firepower Monthly_ disputed the notions of "easily maintained" and "reliable," though no one here much cared.)

"We have never worked with others, we declined to make use of any of that fancy-schmancy 'e-Tech' and have always stuck to doing things our way! The family's way!"

Bart happened to be a decent public speaker, not something one would expect at a gathering which mostly featured stereotypical frontiersmen and hunters.

"Hyperion wasted their chance by spending on extravagant toys that didn't get the job done. Vladof never really communicated with us. How do people survive on Pandora? By trusting themselves, and no one else! Why should we worry about the fortunes of others when even now, the 'alliance' falls apart as Vladof and Hyperion expend all their effort trying to shore up their own territories?"

Much eye-rolling commenced at the next portion of Bart's speech, even though it was completely expected.

"Montgomery Jakobs built this company with the sweat and blood of his family, not random people he found wandering the wilderness. Are any of those others going to put the family first? Hell no!"

If the typical speech at shareholder meetings was to be believed, Montgomery Jakobs not only created the company, he also built the Pandoran factories with his bare hands (not the underpaid labor actually employed), single-handedly drove Dahl off Pandora (rather than the wildlife/bankruptcy), and he might just have also been able to walk through Eridium slag without it sticking to him. Everyone tried to claim the mantle of "our patriarch" in some way or another despite universal disdain for the tactic. It was a classic case of the prisoner's dilemma—if neither claimed the mantle all would be better off. However, failing to include Montgomery references would pale next to someone who did. If all sides involved made the claim, no one could be accused of "disrespecting the memory of the Eternal Chairman." Thus, the outlandish claims.

"We may not be in the strongest position right now, but we will rebound more quickly if left to our own devices rather than having to take out Hyperion's garbage. Their finances are a wreck from spending all that cash on an intergalactic starship that got _stolen_ by the very people they were trying to _stop_."

Some polite applause followed.

"Vladof is about as transparent as a skag at your front door. We trust each other—families keep no secrets!"

A good portion of the audience doubled up in silent laughter—if the first Jakobs "value" was bureaucracy, the second was secrecy. Still, the glittery-sounding generality about "family good, others bad" held the audience's attention.

"First they get busted for slave labor—so much for "power to the people." Then we find out they're in the running behind Hyperion for obsessing over slag research. We are better than that. We need not debase ourselves by associating with mad scientists! Jakobs builds _weapons_, not torture devices. Every kill a clean kill—and if it took two shots, you weren't using a Jakobs!"

Out of the SDU came a Godfinger. Somewhere above, several targets dropped. And shattered over the heads of a stunned audience as they were each hit by a round, leaving confetti fluttering down.

Anyone expecting a standard discussion of the business case for each proposal would not see such a thing. That Jakobs continued to be profitable and remained in one piece confused just about everybody, as between factionalism, emotion trumping business logic, and virtual slavery to "tradition," the company should not have survived. But somehow, it did.

Loud chants broke out as the last pieces of paper landed. "Jakobs! Jakobs! Jakobs!"

Raising his hands for quiet, Bill Arkansas called for the next speaker.

"The next proposal for consideration shall be sending envoys to Maliwan/Torgue."

The loudest chorus of jeers yet emanated from the assembled members of the Jakobs family.

"Please, please!" Again, Chairman Bill called for quiet. After five or so minutes, order was restored, only to break down again upon the appearance of the next presenter.

"Buckshot! Buckshot! Buckshot!"

Buck Rogers Jakobs had a reputation—mainly because he was responsible for many innovations related to shotguns. Hence, "Buckshot."

That he was taking a disliked stance was mostly offset by his personal popularity. Those who supported him had begged, pleaded, and finally persuaded him to speak before the shareholder/family meeting for exactly this reason. If almost anyone else (short of, perhaps, the ghost of Montgomery himself) had suggested allying (or at least not shooting) Maliwan/Torgue, he or she would have been running for his or her life from all the items that would have been thrown from the audience.

"I'm sure all of you remember" thundered a voice befitting a man who designed shotguns, "that one of our most powerful shotguns uses a Hyperion barrel?"

Attendees noticeably deflated at this statement. No one liked to admit that the Striker used non-Jakobs parts, especially since it was widely considered the crown jewel of Jakobs' weapons.

"We don't have to stop being who we are in order to incorporate useful ideas or things from others" he continued. "I'm not proposing we join them—I'm proposing their technology and knowledge joins us! We give them enough to keep them interested, while grabbing as much as we can. Then we make a run for it. Classic smash and grab!"

That wasn't quite what most were expecting since it hardly qualified as a legitimate alliance.

"Hell, we don't even have to do the smash part. Why make unnecessary enemies when we can just get what we need and leave?"

"Kind of like going on dates for the free food" remarked a sandy-haired girl.

"You would do that, Stephanie" teased her brother.

"And you test-fly ships for the trinkets and coupons" she replied smugly. "Pot, kettle, black!" No one in the wider auditorium noticed this exchange.

"Not to point out sore spots, but don't we all kind of do this to each other all the time?" continued Buck. "We form alliances of convenience within the family. Lots of backstabbings, betrayals, and intrigue, but we're still here, aren't we? I say we see what we can learn from these others, then use it to our advantage."

A small but not insignificant number of shareholders actually did want a real military and (limited) commercial pact with MALITOR—and these individuals found themselves wholly unsatisfied with Buck "Buckshot" Jakobs' speech. Though, they had to admit he'd proved his own point by playing them, as it seemed Buck's end purpose was a platform for _this_ idea: the grab-and-run. Only it wasn't something he could sell to the go-it-alone hardliners and stick-it-out types. Supporters of genuine cooperation would have to settle for this. They knew it, they hated it, but there were no other options.

"Just yesterday, I met with Torgue Flexington himself!" bellowed the shotgun master. "He gave me this!"

Out of Buck's SDU came a shotgun few had seen—a Torgue Carnage. Not the old model either, this was a top-of-the-line version 2.0 with more damage, faster fire, and greater explosive radius. Firing the huge weapon over the assembled crowd, Buck made it rain…Eridum. Eridum fragments, from sand-grain size to grape-size fell like slightly dangerous downpour onto the attendees of the annual Family Meeting.

Eridium, being Eridium, was prized no matter how one acquired it. Much scampering about was had as everyone tried to get a decent-size chunk.

"There's more where that came from! We don't much use Eridium in our weapons, but we are running out of sources of reliable wood, especially since the events of previous years!" (This was as close as anyone could get to mentioning zombies and Jakobs Cove.) Torgue promised us to swap Eridium we find for shares in his private forest—the man has a personal FOREST on Pandora!"

As odd as the offer sounded, it turned some heads. Jakobs prided itself on manufacturing the finest weapons money could buy. The rarity of real wood added extra flavor. Boosting supply meant more sales (without lowering prices of course). It didn't matter how expensive Jakobs guns became. If fifty people chased after one gun because it was the only model available, and suddenly there were two or three, it wasn't going to put downward pressure on prices. If anything, a slight supply increase would boost the Jakobs name by giving the (false) impression that their weapons had become easier to acquire—making them once again the talk of Pandora as prospective buyers lusted after wooden stocks once more.

Not ones to overlook the opportunity to get a chant going, someone shouted "Smash and grab!" Chairman Bill had to actually use his gavel, which aside from opening, had lain untouched.

"All of you, shut it!"

Faces fell. When the patriarch got mad, everyone paid attention, though in this case his voice wasn't what the audience now focused on.

Jet-black hair. Ivory skin. Chiseled jaw. Piercing eyes. And a killer body wrapped in a tight bodysuit that showed more cleavage than would normally be appropriate at an ordinary business meeting.

Jackie "Blackheart" Jakobs was known for two things: dead-on aim and utter ruthlessness. Apparently a proponent of retaining the JVLN alliance (who knew, she mostly remained above such things), a savvy political operator, and a lethal assassin, it was rumored she'd been "involved" with Handsome Jack at one point. She vehemently denied the accusation. Her detractors also called her a "mantis" as many of her bed-partners ended up dead. Looking no older than twenty-five despite being almost ten years older, she remained unmarried—three guesses as to why and the first two don't count!

"When I was growing up" she began, "we didn't have much money."

An odd statement from a Jakobs directly descended from the man himself, unless you knew her background.

"My mother left when I was five" (even odder) "So I was raised by roughnecks. And I'm damn proud of it!"

At this point, a few who already knew the story were pulling out tissues.

"When my dad married her, he didn't know what she was—a great-great-great granddaughter of Montgomery Jakobs. I didn't know either, and if she'd had her way, I never would have. You see, she resented me. Resented that she suddenly had a child to care for instead of just her and Dad roaming the space lanes, preying on merchant vessels, drinking, fucking, and engaging in general debauchery. So she walked out."

Hearing someone drop an f-bomb in the middle of a family meeting was one of the few things that got a reaction as there were many audible gasps.

"Yeah yeah, you bunch of prudes, I said 'fuck,' get the fuck over it" she continued. "My mother was never the most accurate rifle in the armory—but she did know what she wanted: to ensure I never got my Jakobs birthright. By that time, it was a piddly one share, but she hated me so much that she was determined to deny it to me even if it was the last thing she did."

"That manipulative little…" A Board member started to rise, but stopped when he saw the Chairman's silent outstretched hand. "She's playing us, this room—she's always used her sob story as a crutch" he hissed.

Pickens Jakobs saw his terminal flash—"BE SEATED OR LEAVE. CHAIRMAN"

He resumed his seat, fuming to himself. Why many terminals had to print out messages in capital letters, he would never understand.

"She sent goons after me again and again. Atlas, mostly—Crimson Lance." She practically spat the last words. "Supposedly, she slept with the lot of 'em too. That Atlas _whore_."

Everyone knew what was coming next.

"Pappy held the lot of them off, told me to run for it. He gave me his Judge pistol—his most prized possession, before Atlas thugs kicked down the door. I lived on the streets—even took shelter with that crazy lady Moxxi for a while."

Laughs, hoots, hollers. Moxxi was on no one's side (unless she was on hers, in bed), never stabbed anyone in the back (though she spent a lot of time on her back), and in general made few enemies. Those who did end up on her bad side learned the meaning of the phrase "woman scorned" as two (Lucky Zaford and Handsome Jack) met death by Vault Hunter.

"She was also the one who tipped me off to my heritage, as much as my mother insulted it by selling out to Atlas."

Cheers accompanied mention of "heritage" which immediately changed to angry hisses at the word "Atlas."

"She tried to erase me from the family tree." Her voice rose. "That conniving harpy was a drug-addled wreck who couldn't get twenty dollars a night by the time she realized I was still alive. She had the nerve to access the family database and try to wipe me out of it!"

"You know who stopped her? Hyperion Elite Guards. Contractors! They didn't even know who she was—they just, they just knew what she was doing was wrong, somehow. The Hyperion that was before that megalomaniac took over came as close as you could to a benevolent corporation, hiring only the best and most upstanding people. I know I'm not one of them, for fuck's sake, a lot of us aren't. But give Hyperion a chance and we may well end up with the strongest partner in the six galaxies!"

"What about Vladof?" shouted a person in the audience.

"What about them? They've been mostly a silent partner—if they're not against us, they're an ally."

Jackie's somewhat illogical storytelling didn't quite explain why, other than out of a sense of personal loyalty, she thought Jakobs should stick it out with Hyperion and Vladof. Pickens may have been a bit of a prick, but he had a point—support for this position would come mainly out of sympathy for Jackie, not any belief that the JVLN would still fly straight and true.

"Jackie! Jackie! Jackie!"

Chairman Bill again had to fight the tide to regain control of the meeting.

"Thank you so much to our presenters—you each made a compelling case for your position. Now, the questions may begin…"

[…]

Over the thirty hours Samantha Shepard spent in a Trans-Galactic Republic surgical suite, her friends and allies trickled into the waiting room. Eventually, the medical staff became so tired of answering the same questions a short movie was put on a loop for any newcomers. 

_Durius, Melius, Velocius, Fortior: The Commander Shepard Reconstruction Project_

Roughly translated as "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" (every big project needed a Latin motto in order to sound more awesome), Sam's friends gathered before the vidscreen.

"This is going to be the second time someone put her back together" commented Garrus Vakarian.

"You think she'll be alright?" wondered Jack. "If they bring her back all fucked up, I bet she figures it out within a week and kills them!"

Her enthusiasm caused a few stares and cleared throats.

"Given what we've seen the Trans-Galactic Republic do, I doubt that would happen" commented Maya. "Really, at this point she might be able to outdo Lilith."

At the mention of Lilith, the mood became slightly more somber.

"We've just lost so many" sighed Brick. "War sucks."

Moxxi had caught a shuttle up along with some battle-weary Trans-Galactic Republic troops. She broke into a fresh wave of sobs on hearing mention of deaths. A combined memorial service for all those who had passed on fighting the war was being organized. So far, the honoree list included Lilith, Roland, Oriana Lawson, Liara T'Soni, Tina, Scooter, and Angel.

Strangely, she found herself being comforted by Michael Mamaril, someone she'd not really ever gotten along with as he didn't really approve of her rather bloodthirsty ways (the Underdome, mainly).

Urdnot Wrex made (for him) a rather understated entrance—with the war over, several ships were making runs between Gamma-Three and Gamma-Six. Mass effect cores allowed hyper-zero speedruns at the price of high fuel consumption. Thirty hours was a long time, especially when the trip inbound only took a fraction of that. Despite Shepard's descent into insanity, it wasn't the first time, and many who had shied away from her now realized if she did bounce back, she'd need all the support she could get.

This line of thought brought Tali, Miranda, and even justicar Samara to the waiting room outside where Shepard lay in temporal repose.

"I wonder if they'll do a better job than we did?" commented Miranda. "Though, based on that vid, it looks like they're leaving most of the reconstruction above the navel alone."

"For now" chimed in Tali. "They're going to have to fix her shoulder too, but only after the rest of her is put back together so they can safely bring Sam's upper torso out of stasis."

"The balance of Shepard's actions is still on the side of the Code, otherwise I would be compelled to kill both her and those attempting to bring her back."

"Thanks for that Samara, really brightens the mood" cracked Jeff "Joker" Moreau.

"Now, now, you really can't talk" chided Garrus. "You were the one implying I had a stick up my ass…"

"One big, happy, weird, family" growled Wrex. "She either walks out of that room, or we carry her out. She deserves nothing less!"

Miranda hadn't really paid attention to the repeating vid until she noticed the portion mentioning that one price of Sam's reconstruction would be the ability to bear children. Upon hearing this, _she_ broke down as well. Though she'd tried to hide it (no one hid things from the Shadow Broker), Miranda had been genetically modified to be unable to conceive—a final twisted "gift" from her bastard of a father. She grieved her inability to start a family, while being held by Moxxi who mourned the loss of hers.

"Okay, if anyone else starts crying, we're probably going to have a flood" muttered Jack.


	4. New Horizons Await

**Chapter 4 – New Horizons Await**

"This time, let's do it right."

That phrase became the unofficial motto of the Trans-Galactic Republic's Great Opportunities Fleet. Admiral Adam Grayson used what little power the remains of _Revenant_ had left to transmit an ultradense packet of information to Admiralty Command relating the battles in Gamma-Three and Gamma-Six. As a result of this new information, the Great Opportunities Fleet would not leave home unprepared. A dozen field secured container vessels for RNS _Ultimatum_ alone would ensure the mighty Star Dreadnaught would not suffer embarrassing power shortages. A second supply fleet would also follow the main group through. In fact, a continuous set of ships would make the run from the Home Galaxy to Gamma-Six to both keep the Great Opportunities Fleet running and bring back any items (or persons) of interest. Return trips would take far longer due to the absence of available mass relays aimed to provide a trip in the direction of travel—even using faster ships covering the millions of light years between the Home Galaxy and Gamma-Six would take half a year with favorable conditions.

Four squadrons of Mark-II _Curators_ (forty-eight ships), over a hundred light cruisers, and two hundred frigate-type vessels accompanied _Ultimatum_. The fleet carriers RNS _Skywalker_ and RNS _Solstice_ would offer fighter cover for the big battlewagon. The former bore the name of a near-mythical figure from millions of years ago—he was supposed to have ended wars merely be being present, slaughtered thousands of enemies on the field of battle, and been a great general. The name _Skywalker_ thus became a badge of honor for one ship in the fleet. Full-time historians chronicled the career of each ship so named.

In addition to staggering firepower, the fleet included several large ships whose sole purpose would be to drag what was left of _Revenant_ back to Trans-Galactic Republic space. The Home Senate passed a bill authorizing extensive release of Trans-Galactic Republic technology to the "brave, industrious citizens of our neighbor, Gamma-Six" in exchange for returning the burned-out hulk of the first Trans-Galactic Republic super-dreadnaught built in years (that the public knew about). It was hoped that it would be possible to use this "digistruction" technology found in Gamma-Three to make _Revenant_ spaceworthy again, but this was not a high priority, especially because it might permit those deemed less ready (Gamma-Three) to have access to cutting-edge technology in the process of repairing _Revenant_. If it were to be used, it would only be employed once _Revenant_ was well away from both Gamma-Three and Gamma-Six. Little did most legislators know that someone had clandestine plans for the broken behemoth.

No political machinations crossed the mind of Fleet Admiral Allison Nimitz. A "lifer" career officer, she carried the unusual distinction of serving in both the "wet" surface Navy and the Star Fleet. Thanks to a strange genetic mutation, the eighty-year-old woman looked not a day over thirty five (and had the physique to prove it). Typical lifespans for humans in the Trans-Galactic Republic measured over a century; two or even three were not unheard of. When she set another record for calisthenics, some of those she beat were actually half her chronological age (much to their chagrin). Sending such a respected elder officer sent two signals: one, this is serious and two, we're willing to open diplomatic relations fully.

Nimitz had been present the last time the Trans-Galactic Republic made extra-galactic contact, bringing the tenth galaxy into the fold. That had been almost fifty years ago, when she'd made her first move from surface to space as part of an experimental cross-pollination program. That the Trans-Galactic Republic Navy essentially consisted of two separate branches had been a long-running concern of the Admiralty Command. The spacers had vast experience from flying everywhere in the nine (soon to be ten) galaxies but developed less operational depth (pun not intended), while surface Navy personnel were generally limited in service to a single planet with which they gained immense familiarity. After all, how practical was it to ship ships from one world to another? Asking personnel to relearn systems and procedures on vastly differentiated, fragmented ship-types would have been even more costly. Thus also began a drive to standardize surface Navy ship types, beginning with the gigantic repulsor-carriers.

Nimitz had been a Lieutenant Commander aboard such a carrier, RNS _Phalanx_, before being selected for the "S2S" program (Space-to-Sea and Sea-to-Space, depending on direction of transfer). She'd been a fast-riser in the wet Navy, and the trend continued once in Star Fleet. She had faced some prejudice upon joining the crew of the then-new _Prosecutor-_class Star Destroyer RNS _Adamant_ due to being a "fishy" or "splashy" (derogatory terms for the surface Navy used by spacers, who were in return called "asstronauts" and "stargazers"). Despite these initial disadvantages, she proved herself in the Fifth Battle of Maaleran V in which she successfully led an improvised militia of civilians against the insurrectionist Nebula Front. Despite spending eons in space, many a combatant fought as if starships were confined to two dimensions of movement instead of three. Knowing exactly what the limitations would have been in a surface engagement, Nimitz actively pursued alternate strategies that took advantage of her opponents' limited thinking. Striking from below, above, behind, and even head-on, her "fleet" of armed star yachts held off Nebula Front bombers attempting to release a bioweapon into the planet's atmosphere. The shocked, but gratified captain of the _Prosecutor _-class vessel RNS _Steadfast_ found the malcontents disabled awaiting capture rather than having to rescue thousands of helpless civvies as the perpetrators hyperspaced out. His commendation combined with the results of the battle ended any preconceived notions Allison Nimitz's fellow spacers had about her in one stroke.

Ten years hence, she had her own _Prosecutor_, _Unyielding Defender_. It was lost in a glorious battle against corrupt corporate interests, but not before racking up a vicious kill-count. She learned what happened when ships were designed by committee (as the _Prosecutors_ were)—trying to please everyone pleased no one. Lots of fighters that were cumbersome to launch/recover. Many weapons, but poorly placed. A huge spaceframe, mostly wasted. Slow, inefficient, poorly shielded for its size—about its only redeeming feature was its terrifically fast hyperdrive (class 0.65).

During a "world war" on the Keeran homeworld, she took command of the newly-standardized repulsor-carrier _Poseidon's Bane_, before being shunted back into space after the conclusion of that bloody conflict. Fate seemed to work in her favor, as an attempt to discredit now lower-echelon Vice Admiral Nimitz by placing her in an out-of-the-way sector backfired due to her stepping up to lead a fight over a much more senior but incompetent career spacer whose fleet was wiped out two sectors over. The Trans-Galactic Republic lost that little dust-up, but the fact that she gave them hell before pulling back earned her credit. After that, the Pendalites were formally banned from membership in the Trans-Galactic Republic and sanctioned back to the age of caves. The species never recovered. Over the course of the next few decades, she advanced to the upper echelon, then Minor Admiral, Admiral, and finally Fleet Admiral.

Star Dreadnaughts like the _Revenant_ rated a full Admiral or higher as a commanding officer. The need for an individual exceeding Admiral in rank depended on the situation at hand (mostly, the size of the fleet supporting the Star Dreadnaught, but no one wanted to admit that openly). Consequently, Fleet Admiral Nimitz found herself in command of the Great Opportunities Fleet. The success of Allison Nimitz and others like her over the years convinced the Admiralty Command to enlarge the S2S program, meaning a significant portion of the _Ultimatum_'s crew were S2S graduates. Increasing levels of standardization between space and sea led to easier transfers (and lower costs). The GO Fleet would take roughly a month to stage before shooting nearly instantly to its destination.

[…]

Not all fresh adventures involved outer space. After waiting a third of a Pandoran day for a response, Patricia Tannis finally had a group of intrepid volunteers to begin exploration of caverns below the Altar. Maya and Garrus (fresh from being cooped up outside Shepard's surgery), Athena, and Axton would spend two weeks mapping out the mysterious structures beneath the Pandoran ice.

"Make sure you pack enough dextro food!" harped Garrus for the umpteenth time. Compressed and liquefied nutrients would be the standard fare for the quartet since no one could figure out how to safely store food/water in Storage Deck Units or other digistruct devices. Of course, SDUs conferred other advantages—ammo, weapons, and other supplies did not take up space in backpacks so almost all of the available space could be dedicated to rations.

"I still don't understand" complained Maya. She enjoyed learning, but chemistry/biology was not her strong suit.

"If I eat your food, I could die" deadpanned the turian.

"Dying is not on the list of tasks to be performed in this study" said Athena. "At least not _us_ dying."

"Help me pack these towers" called Axton. "Watch out, Tannis said they're fragile!"

"Well, I'm glad I wear my armor everywhere." Garrus collapsed two of the seismic imaging towers into his backpack. "You know, just in case these imagers cause rocks to fall and kill everyone else."

"Very reassuring" snarked Maya. The turian seemed to think he was funny. With all his death jokes, he might fit in on Pandora after all!

Athena, as usual, was all business. "We move step-by-step, setting up the seismic towers, taking readings, and moving to the next area. Each tower can cover up to a 400 meter radius, depending on the composition of the ground. It takes thirty minutes to set up and calibrate a tower, fifteen minutes to take readings, and five minutes to break it all down. We are going to have 50 meter overlaps between imagings, and must work in pairs."

"So that means with an eight hour day…"

"You didn't hear the mad scientist, did you?" Axton was not happy. "She wants us doing twelve hour days!"

"She's not coming with us" replied Garrus. "Besides, I don't think the world will end if this survey takes longer than she wanted it to."

"Even with twelve hours a day spent imaging, we'll be lucky to get seven or eight samples per team" said Athena. "Remember, we have to walk around down there to place the towers and have no idea where we're going or the places tunnels will lead. We have to consider the possibility of becoming lost or stuck."

"This just gets better and better." Axton could no longer hide his annoyance.

"Hey! You volunteered for this" snapped Maya.

"Here we go…" muttered Garrus. "I thought Jack and Miranda were bad."

[…]

Thirty exhausting hours later, the medical team working on Samantha Shepard emerged from the surgical suite. "The first set of procedures was successful." After that statement, the exhausted doctor turned around to head back in—doubtlessly to another patient with another problem that had to be fixed by cutting, stitching, or relocating.

A soft chorus of cheers broke out among Shepard's assembled friends and crew, until Wrex pointed out "They only finished the first step."

"So what's the next step?" wondered Miranda.

Samara spoke up. "It is likely that additional reconstructive surgery will be required to repair the damage to Samantha's shoulder."

"And they'll have to hold off on that until after they've finished making sure the first surgery actually works out, along the lines of 'We put the mass effect core in the ship, now let's see if it flies'" continued Tali.

"Well, for the record, our job was harder." Miranda folded her arms and mock-pouted. "She was actually _dead_ that time."

"As you humans say, she is not out of the woods yet" replied the justicar. "There are still many remaining obstacles to the Commander's well-being to overcome."

As if on cue, a nurse handed over a datapad outlining exactly what had to go exactly right for Samantha Shepard to recover. The list was rather lengthy, and contained many "if and only if's."

After the subdued celebration of Sam Shepard's initial success in surgery, Tali'Zorah decided to head back to the SETTLE headquarters. Much work remained, including an experimental weapon to be mounted on a top-secret new design. Schematics liberated from Sapiens Shield/Cerberus showed great potential in small-scale tests, but also the possibility for tremendous devastation in the wrong hands. Even with the Reapers gone, no one was going to take the chance of being caught unprepared again.

Tali enjoyed confronting complex design problems—it was something common to most quarians. That said, her desire to tackle difficult engineering tasks was somewhat reduced when she found herself working with a hyper-active teenager. Gaige had incredible intelligence, but lacked the focus found among more seasoned personnel. Of course, that Gaige had often inspired or was the direct source of breakthroughs lately despite her age and newcomer status didn't help the situation as Tali was slightly jealous. Well, okay, very jealous, but she wasn't about to admit this to anybody. She'd fastened her father's actions firmly around her neck, so she had something to prove—she wasn't sure how she'd do it, but Gaige wasn't helping.

Gaige had an idea that combined guns which spat fire and starship weapons using mass effect fields. It was an awesome, incredible, and nifty idea. Take a property-charged bullet ("elemental" in Gaige-speak), shrink it down while maintaining its special property, and launch it out of a mass accelerator at extreme velocities. This improved both damage from the round itself and the effect of specialized ammunition, as the greater destruction left due to round travel speed made the target more susceptible to other types of damage.

"Oh, I am going to one-up that little brat" Tali vowed. "Let's see…inertial confinement fusion…"

Meanwhile, a turian-led design team worked over different hull possibilities for the new ship. Codenamed "Project Olympic," its goal was to produce an affordable, powerful "anti-Reaper" lest any other hostile forces come knocking. Unfortunately, even with the research that had gone into _Aspirations Toward Infinity_ these ships were looking downright huge. Lessons learned from the design included "install point-defense guns," "include fighters/hangars somewhere" and "for the love of all that's holy, no more fixed-forward-facing-weapons!" To accommodate these changes, more energy was needed. To produce more energy, larger power cores were needed. To fit a larger power core, a longer spaceframe was needed. Because of the longer spaceframe…

Thus far, the "Project Olympic" vessels would be 12,800m in length—twice the size of the single-purpose dreadnaughts they were meant to replace. 12,800m long, made of hypothetical materials that only currently existed in small quantities, and that still didn't solve the power-density problem. Affordability? Out the airlock to the tune of three trillion credits. _Each_. _Without counting development costs_.

"One step forward, five steps back" muttered Tali. Hopefully, the Reapers didn't have vengeful distant cousins or something.

[...]

As always, the Jakobs shareholder/family meeting dissolved into chaos once voting began. When the "go-it-alone" faction failed to survive the first round of balloting, both "stay-the-course" and "find-new-allies" camps tried to court them. Buck Rodgers and Jackie made personal appeals to Bart Jakobs to try to secure his support. They needn't have bothered as many who supported him previously splintered on their own and were not inclined to follow their "leader" anymore.

Ultimately, not much ended up changing because neither remaining side could muster the 60% shareholder support required to advance before the Board (on which a simple majority would have been enough). It appeared Jackie Jakobs had won by default, as "no change" essentially came out as "stay the course." That her advocacy for such a stance was rather odd (again centering more on a sense of personal loyalty to a Hyperion of the past than any present benefit to either her or the family) didn't seem to incense anyone once it was realized "stay the course" had won by not losing.

Really, so long as no repeats were had of the "Massacre on Themis," everyone would walk away at least not-angry. At that meeting a few decades back, a group of Jakobs family members were slaughtered by a hidden explosive. No one knew who planted it, and each faction within the family blamed another. The most curious aspect was that those who were killed did not hold a significant number of voting shares, nor were they connected to anyone important within the family power structure. Investigators concluded there _was_ a deliberate attempt to draw these people together since other than blood ties they were mostly unrelated to one another, but for what reason (given Jakobs family politics, killings almost always had a specific motive) no one knew. Sweeps for evidence turned up no traces of known explosives, despite a roomful of hundreds of witnesses who swore up and down that there was some kind of explosion. Never mind the clearly blast-related trauma on the bodies of those who died that day.

For all the pomp and circumstance surrounding annual Jakobs meetings, not much ever happened at them other than blatant showmanship. Then again, given how messed up the Jakobs family had become, this didn't surprise anyone.

Jackie took off immediately following the votes. Buck Rogers had some business on-world. Bart vanished into the nearby slums. The rest of the family slowly dispersed. Local enterprises had a love-hate relationship with Jakobs as a family. On one hand, they brought more business in a few days than most would see in a year on backwater worlds. On the other, they tended to leave tremendous messes behind that could cost as much to clean up as there was profit in hosting such a sizable gathering.

[...]

The end of the Reaper War left many questioning whether the United Defense Command had gone too far in supplanting traditional civilian (i.e. Council) control of military forces. The Council, over Udina's objections, voted itself back the powers it had ceded during the conflict, including the right to remove flag officers for misconduct. Victus, Clethon and Tevos wondered how they'd deal with the bombastic ambassador from humanity given that his views were now rapidly de-synching from the rest of his species.

Unfortunately for the Council, pieces of paper were far less of power projection tools than starships—and a good number of the latter remained under the control of the United Defense Command. At first, the UDC tried to project a front of "There are still threats, you need us" (especially referring to Sapiens' Shield). In a sense, this wasn't far from the truth since despite military devastation the remains of Sapiens Shield continued to attack convoys, planets, and other "softer" targets due to most heavy naval units being stationed in Gamma-Three at the moment.

On the upside, Sapiens Shield itself began to fragment in a major way. Cerberus reasserted itself harshly, destroying several vessels belonging to the "JVLN" group. Said group was made up of three entities—themselves not exactly the closest of friends. They went from teeth-clenched teamwork one week to quiet attempts to destroy each other the next. It appeared something from the "home" galaxy had changed, but no one within Citadel jurisdiction had any idea what that might be.


	5. Trudging, Talking, and Testing

**Chapter 5 – Trudging, Talking, and Testing**

Thankfully for Garrus, he'd badly misjudged the seemingly-vicious banter between Axton and Maya. He'd spoken to many of the non-Trans-Galactic Republic "outsiders" casually but hadn't really gotten to know them well. It turned out not only did these "Vault Hunters" viciously trash-talk each other (in ways that made Jack/Miranda look positively tame!) they even _killed_ each other. Repeatedly. _For fun_.

"AD&D Insurance" had a whole different meaning on Pandora. Someone had figured out "brain-backups" to the point where, so long as one had bought their way into the system, a new body with all memories would reappear at a nearby "New-U Station." It was all _wireless,_ too! Though it sounded like something out of an omnitool game, the stations did actually work, until the Reapers destroyed the central control computer and many of the "respawn" points.

_That system might be able to help Shepard if someone rebuilt it_ he thought, though he did not mention it to anyone.

Speaking of Shepard, Wrex always wanted to know who would win in a fight—the-other-person-in-the-elevator or Samantha Shepard. Perhaps on Pandora the burning question could be answered.

The four moved cautiously through smashed rock littered with bits of Eridium. For some reason, Garrus and Garrus alone felt a strange tingling sensation as they passed through what was once the Prime Vault/Altar. Handheld sensors revealed nothing of interest which might explain the phenomenon, so the party focused efforts elsewhere. A most intriguing find came toward what was termed the "basement" of the Altar. A large cylindrical shard of Eridium the size of a human forearm lay on the path, glowing with a blinding inner light. Anyone who touched it felt its vibrations pulse through them. Said vibrations followed a pattern from one end of the piece to the other following the long axis every few seconds. No visible changes occurred though, the repetition had to be felt, not seen.

Axton carefully wrapped it in anti-static cushioning before placing it in his pack, reckoning that "Something this weird could get scrambled by being put in an SDU."

_Some time later..._

"Garrus, catch!"

Athena tossed a ruggedized calibration pad to the turian. It would set up the seismic tower's software for the environment and run tests to make sure any data collected would meet the required (exacting) standard established by Tannis. So far, the quartet mapped three spots with an average radius of 250 meters each. Nothing interesting yet, but since they'd barely moved beyond the basement level of the structure depth-wise no one expected to find anything. They were still within areas that had been previously mapped—Tannis wanted to scan for unusual mineral deposits in areas whose topography was known.

"This definitely is a nice break from being shot at" said Axton. "And if rocks do fall, my turret can project a shield."

"That's good to know" droned Maya. She'd been totally absorbed in some information she'd downloaded from Hyperion. Combined with Patricia Tannis's research notes, she was trying to see if anything new could be determined about the origin of Sirens (when not assisting the team with setting up seismic sensors).

"Sirens sure are strange" remarked Athena with no hint of taunting or malice. "You're born that way, with a half-body tattoo and a unique power that seems to defy the laws of physics. Somehow no one knows what this is about, or why it happens."

"There's always the Rakkman legend" said Axton. "Not that I believe stuff that's written in ancient books, but Lilith was the one who put an end to the Harvesters. The psychos might be, well, crazy, but the whole shtick about a Siren being our 'last hope' turned out to be truer than we thought."

Not everyone knew the entirety of the Maya/Lilith story. She decided it would be a good time to share it.

"In the end, it looks like Sirens impacted the fate of the galaxy thrice recently" she concluded. "Angel, Lilith, and myself."

"So you're like Sam Shepard, except without the whole Reapers thing" replied Garrus. It seemed some people were just always in the thick of it when entire galaxies were at stake, as if events of cosmic importance were pulled to them. "And there isn't more than one Sam Shepard."

"Based on what I've seen, if you had six Sam Shepards the fight would have been over a long time ago" said Axton, lounging against a rock. "If you want a lady of war, she's it!"

"Let's…let's get moving." Axton could almost hear Garrus deflate about a size from all the talk about his old Commander.

That day, the survey team completed a total of seven scans, roughly on par with what Tannis wanted. At what passed for dinner, the four actually decided to get to know one another rather than spending the whole trip complaining (which would have been easy enough to do as they forced themselves to swallow almost-liquid nutrients).

"You're not from around here" began Axton, indicating Garrus. "Why don't you start?"

"Well, my father was very by-the-book. He worked in C-Sec, or Citadel Security—they're law enforcement on the Citadel space station that is usually considered the center of society where I'm from."

"At least you had a choice" replied Maya bitterly. She and Athena exchanged significant looks.

"Well, only somewhat of a choice" he continued. "When I was chosen as a possible candidate for the Spectres, my own father blocked me from even trying. That isn't much of a choice. And he didn't even do it to my face—he pulled behind-the-scenes strings."

"That sucks" spat Axton. "Backstabbed by your own dad!"

"It wasn't all bad—I did get tapped to investigate corruption in the very Spectres whose ranks I never ended up trying to reach. Unfortunately, it was just a political ploy to appease the human ambassador Udina…"

"That asshole who was practically kneeling in front of Xytler every time he opened his mouth?" laughed Athena. "Since I was supposed to be the 'auditor' making sure Spectres didn't go too far off the rails, I got to see a lot. Some of the policies he was pushing—Spectre-level standing army, super-Spectres not accountable even to the Council, you're getting the sense of a pattern here, no?"

"Create an entire military with zero accountability and the mandate to do 'whatever it takes'" said Garrus. "Somehow, I don't think that would work."

"Anyway" he continued, "when Sam Shepard was named the first human Spectre, again an appeasement measure I suspect, I jumped at the chance to work with her. Very, very, very long story short, we took down some terrible people—some who were escaping justice through loopholes or flat-out legal neglect."

"Such as?" Axton leaned in—he was genuinely interested now.

"A crazy scientist was actually growing organs inside his own test subjects, then selling said organs on the black market. If the organ failed to grow correctly, _he just left it inside_."

Maya made a small retching noise.

"We took him down. He escaped the first time because C-Sec wouldn't shoot down an obvious criminal 'too close to the station.'"

Garrus took on a self-satisfied smirk. "No bothersome regulations about 'potentially clogging traffic lanes' to stop a Spectre!"

"A Spectre who clearly kicked a lot of Harvester ass" remarked Axton. "Damn, she is fine!"

Maya's eyes rolled, Athena facepalmed, and Garrus did his best to not react.

"Stopping a Spectre that's gone bad is difficult" he continued. "It basically takes another Spectre to do so, and the Council needed a lot of convincing that a blatantly racist turian Spectre was working for the Reapers. It took Shepard to sort that one out, and she had to beat her way through red tape set to stop her every time she thought she had a lead. The Council protects its favorites. Of course, even after we stopped Saren, for years afterward those yammering politicians insisted it was 'the geth' even though Sam and I nearly got crushed by a piece of the Reaper in question. The tech was too advanced for the geth—too smart. Any quarian could tell you that!"

"Some people won't recognize a skag problem until their garden is nothing but a pile of skag shit" huffed Axton.

"Exactly" concurred Garrus. "Then Shepard went and _died_ on me, and for a while it looked like everything I ever fought for was for nothing. The Council swept the whole thing under the proverbial rug. They pretended nothing was going to happen. Then the Collector attacks against human colonies started… I wanted to make a difference, but working inside the system wasn't going to change anything. C-Sec was too set in its ways—when I left the force I also had a huge falling-out with my father over it too. He accused me of betraying everything he'd taught me to believe in."

"Rough break" commented Axton.

"I went after a local smuggler who'd been taunting C-Sec for years. On my own, without the force of the law or even a squad. Eventually, I caught up with him, and before I killed him with an overdose of his own red sand, he told me his actual supplier could be found on the lawless Omega space station."

Maya's small "Oh…" could have been interpreted in several different ways. On one hand, she felt sorry that Garrus had tried so hard to "be good" only to run into obstructions at every turn. On the other, she was clearly impressed, even mildly aroused. This Garrus might not be from these parts, he wasn't even _human_, but he definitely would have made the cut as a Vault Hunter. A particularly brutal and effective one at that!

"Can we turn up the heat a tad?" Athena shivered under a thermal blanket.

Garrus twisted the dial on the cylindrical device that sat in the middle of the four as he resumed telling his story. "Omega. What a twisted container of villainy and malcontent! Run by an asari named Aria T'Loak. She wasn't really who I was there for though—it was the pirates, the slavers, the drug dealers. It took a couple months of hard work, but the three mercenary corporations who normally fought like street thugs finally decided to team up on me since I'd been wiping the floor with their sorry asses. Helped that I found a lot of people like me—wanted to make the galaxy a brighter place, found nothing but ever-dimmer lights at C-Sec. Eventually, the mercs turned one of my operatives, which wiped out my whole squad save him and me. The mercs then coordinated a massive assault on my hideout, and I prepared for the end. I decided to call my father so the last words I would have said to him weren't me storming off. He wanted me to come home so we could hash it all out. And then…_she_ came."

"Shepard sounds like a right goddess on the battlefield" mused Axton.

"In all the years I've worked with Shepard, I've learned one thing—do what you believe to be right, and put all of yourself into it. She trusted a geth construct named Legion—Anna Erickson tells me that Legion was instrumental in getting the geth to stop fighting at Rannoch. She handled delicate situations and got everyone out alive, without compromising objectives, on more than one occasion. Even a time when I was ready to kill someone who didn't deserve it—she stopped me."

"Intriguing. I hope now more than ever that she is able to recover" breathed Athena.

"I didn't even tell you about the Collector Base battle…"

After he finished relaying the attack on the Collectors with all its vivid details, his audience remained spellbound.

"Well. Impressive," said Athena. "What else?"

"Oh come on, it's been all Garrus, all the time!" he replied, a twinkle in his eye (as much as a turian could have such a thing). "Surely, at least one of you has something interesting to say. It's an opportunity to share!"

"Cloning blues…" offered Athena.

"…fighting religious rabble…" continued Maya.

"…or more explosions?" finished Axton.

"I think we've had enough explosions for now" replied Archangel. Axton's face fell.

"What's this you say about clones?" He turned to Athena.

"It's a long story…"

[…]

"Attach that last lead!"

Nurse Marilyn hoped against hope Sam Shepard would pull off another miracle. She'd already been dead once, so not technically having died there was still a chance for recovery that didn't involve bringing her back from the other side.

Now came the first true test. Fortunately, when Shepard had been pile-driven with an artillery shell, it had only damaged part of her body, leaving the rest intact. Physical repairs had been completed to the lower half of her torso and her legs had been replaced. In order to ensure these new parts would work, it was necessary to see if electrical impulses fired from the brain actually reached her legs. Performing such a test would require bringing Shepard out of temporal stasis, which meant both placing appropriate examination equipment and being ready for "shock support."

The thing about temporal stasis was that when a patient was "frozen" their body would "unfreeze" in the exact same state as they were when first put under. This meant if a patient was going into shock or had experienced massive trauma somewhere, the brain would assume the condition was still ongoing even if it had been corrected (as was the case here). So Shepard's heart was likely to be beating out of rhythm, and a huge pain surge was also possible. As a result, she was to be kept in a mostly-comatose state. This was possible because Trans-Galactic Republic medical technology allowed semi-selective restoration of brain functions without engaging the higher consciousness. For example, autonomous processes such as breathing or heartbeat could be brought back without actually waking the patient.

Stasis would be gradually withdrawn to bring Sam Shepard's body back up to speed, while drugs would be administered to keep her higher brain under. "Raw" shocks (transmissions from one lead to another without using nerves) showed that her new hips and legs were physically connected to the rest of her body.

A doctor's voice filled the room. "Cardiopulmonary restart in three! Two! One!"

BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP.

The electrocardiogram went nuts as Sam Shepard's heart raced, failing to do its job properly.

Pre-placed paddles beneath the left shoulder and right armpit (viewed from above) delivered stabilizing current to restore normal heart function. Audio and lights indicated the status of the machine—a steadily rising whine followed by a "ZAP!" sound. Just like audio emulators for spaceships, these cues assisted people in performing the required task, the consequence of millennia of inaccurate portrayal of such situations in fiction. People had expectations which contradicted reality, and when the unrealistic expectation didn't materialize, more than one medic/soldier reported the defibrillator/guns were not working when in fact they were.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-T-ZAP!

A red "X" appeared in a small screen on the defibrillator. Normal heart rhythm not yet restored.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-T-ZAP!

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-T-ZAP!

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-T-ZAP!

Ding. Green check-mark. Normal EKG. Marilyn punched the air. "YES."

Heart rate elevated, but pumping correctly. Breaths shallow, but not hyperventilating. Intravenous drug mix changed to include mild sedative.

In the meantime, Mordin Solus, salarian scientist extraordinaire, finally arrived after some diplomatic misunderstandings delayed his departure from hush-hush work on Sur'Kesh.

"Need detailed data. Summaries inadequate."

Less than twenty seconds later: "Prognosis—positive. Will need to maintain coma to protect higher brain functions. Should begin tests on electrical transmission from brain to new implants. Nurse. Please assist!"

Issues were already cropping up. For some reason, impulses sent to Shepard's right leg were not coming through.

"Will procure artificial nerve tissue from Alliance sources. Send memo to Karin Chakwas. Expect she will be most cooperative."

An ultra-sophisticated Virtual Intelligence was wheeled in on a trolley. Its purpose was to replace _all_ automatic nervous system functions until it was safe to reactivate Sam Shepard's brain fully—there was some risk now even with only basic neural activity. As a result, appropriate electrical leads were connected to the back of Shepard's neck. They would use nano-wire drills to reach the medulla, which was where automatic nervous system functions were normally coordinated from.

The only way to verify the functionality of most work done was to run the body through its paces. For instance, it was necessary to see if automatic nerve responses even occurred in areas that had been replaced: digestion, respiration, heart rate, salivation, urination, perspiration, and even arousal. Next would be conscious control—movement of limbs, breathing (again), chewing, eye functions, fine motor control…

"Challenging process. Will require focus. Can do it. Must run many tests."

Indeed, Mordin Solis would not certify the work as done without conducting hundreds, if not thousands, of re-runs of the same small checks. That was where the four-month prognosis came from.

"Has to be this way. Other methods might get it wrong" he insisted when questioned. "Must maintain induced coma, ensure functionality of autonomous nervous system. Observe for a period of several days."

[...]

"Do you know what I used to be?" questioned Athena. Undoubtedly at least two present would know of her employer, if not the fact she worked for them. The last gave a quizzical but interested stare.

"The Crimson Raiders are what's left over when you strip out the nepotism, corruption, greed, and blind idiocy that characterized the Crimson Lance, largely due to Atlas Corporation's legendary incompetence."

"So you worked for the Raiders? Why'd you leave?"

"The Raiders" (she turned to Garrus) "weren't my first rodeo. I was grown in a vat from the DNA of many young girls who had been kidnapped and trained into Crimson Lance Assassins."

Shock registered on the turian's face. "Ooookay, that's a little crazy…"

"Undoubtedly." Athena's tone remained flat and unemotional, as if she were describing the day's shockball scores. "The scientists at Atlas thought combining the genetic material from their first batch of thirty-six would create the ultimate agent. Genetic memory is still a debated subject—but my combat scores were off the charts. Regardless of why that was the case, they decided to produce more of me."

"Produce more? Wait…so they cloned you."

"And put me in charge of training them" she continued. "Atlas was, at the time, the best of the best. That included their military preparation facilities—state-of-the-art live-fire exercises. For weeks, I ensured they learned (or relearned) everything I knew—they were, after all, intended to be as deadly as me. Replace me if necessary, even!"

"Did anyone ever figure out that genetic memory thing?" Garrus really wanted to know.

"Shush. That's not the point. They were the only family I ever had…"

Her voice trailed off, and Athena stopped speaking, visibly attempting to control a rising emotional surge.

"They were the only family I ever had, and I killed them" she whispered.

"I…assume this wasn't…voluntary" stuttered Garrus.

"The brass wanted to see what each of us were capable of" she replied, her voice taking on a mocking, condescending quality that dripped with barely-concealed hatred. "So they pitted us against an entire wave of our own. Most dropped like flies. A few lasted long enough to entertain, but no one was able to survive all of them at once. Except me."

She began openly crying.

"When it was my turn, the bastards wiped all of my sisters from the New-U as they fell" Athena hissed. "I _enjoyed_ putting them all down, showing off my superiority. I figured I'd see them all again in the barracks once the big shots were gone. Instead, I was congratulated as the 'Sole Survivor' and 'Supreme Lance Assassin' afterward. They told me to take the rest of the day off, even sent a car for me rather than the usual obstacle-course-back-to-the-barracks."

"When I said this was an opportunity to share, I didn't mean…"

"Of course you did. You just didn't know what kind of darkness and betrayal you might find…"

"I…"

"I need someone else to know. I need to tell people. It's the only way to make sure this doesn't happen again. If there was a line, Atlas crossed it. Child trafficking, tricking me into murdering my family, slavery, brothels, drugs, illegal business practices, littering…"

Garrus wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry at the last item on that list. So he kept his mandibles closed.

"When I dressed down to casuals and found the barracks empty, at first I was confused. I noticed a terminal had been left on at the front desk, which was unoccupied, so I looked to see what was on it. 'Project Pinnacle: SUCCESS' with a list of all my trainees. A list with a big red 'X' over each face, status column reading 'TERMINATED.'" Her voice lowered to a low but deadly intensity. "I don't know how long I sat in front of that screen. I don't even remember what I did after I stood up. Once I became aware of myself again, I saw flames. Blood. Corpses piled everywhere, some still wearing high-ranking military uniforms. Doors pulled off hinges, desks upended, windows shattered, walls riddled with bullet holes."

Athena looked down at her hands, as if seeing them for the first time. She turned them, palm-up, palm-down, palm-up.

"My hands were covered in blood. My arms were covered in blood. I found a mirror in the barracks locker room—my armor, which I didn't remember putting on, was coated in it. My hair, too. At that point, I realized what I must have done. I turned, and saw my helmet—it remained completely pristine, sitting on a nearby bench on top of an ECHO recorder. On that ECHO was a short recording—my voice! 'I will avenge you, sisters, and I will see them dead **with my own eyes**!'"

Mouths dropped open in shock. Garrus made a mental note not to anger the former assassin. Ever. Maya couldn't decide whether to throw up, laugh, or burst into tears at the barbarity of it all. Axton sat stony-faced, clearly trying to contain whatever his reaction would have been otherwise.

"Inside my helmet, a data disk attached to a reader. It had red lettering scrawled on it. 'Never Forget,' and on a new line, 'KILL THEM ALL.' On the bottom of the disk reader, a bloody handprint. I deduced it was my own as I must have held the device to write on it."

Slowly, deliberately, Athena pulled a small chain around her neck from beneath her adventurer outfit. On the end hung a tiny memory chip. Gently, almost reverently, she let the chip and its chain pool in her other hand.

"This is security footage from the facility that day. I have never watched it, but I carry it with me wherever I go. The memory of what they made me do, even under false pretenses, and my vengeance after that, is a burden I will carry for the rest of my life."

Athena slumped, deflated and defeated. Broken. "This is why I took a desk job on the Citadel after we fought our way off Pandora, so I would never fight or kill again. Stay as far away from the battlefield as I could—my fiercest opponent would be paper cuts or finger strain."

"Cloning blues doesn't even begin to put it mildly" breathed Garrus. "I'm sorry, Athena."

"Don't be. I made my choice, and I mostly keep my demons to myself." The woman was regaining composure as she sat up straighter.

"Heaven help anyone you set those demons on" replied Maya. The two exchanged wicked grins.

"Uhh, guys? It's kind of getting late" said Axton, ruining any "friend-moments" that might have been occurring. "We should probably hit the sack!"

All but Athena were grateful to turn in. Though the quartet enjoyed the past conversation, it had gotten heavy and depressing. Escaping to dreamland would be the perfect antidote for three of four. For the last, sleep brought no relief. Only nightmares, terror, and re-living it all over, and over, and over. Athena kept her eyes open until her body could tolerate wakefulness no more.


	6. Please Be Kind, Rewind!

**Chapter 6 – Please Be Kind, Rewind!**

The Illusive Man, formerly known as Jack Harper, was in a terrible mood. The "Sapiens' Shield" alliance with JVLN had only made a mess of things by adding opinions that were not his to the process of an otherwise-orderly advancement of human interests. Thus, he decided to call off the alliance—once he'd extracted/appropriated anything valuable from his soon-to-be-former "partners."

The decimation from fighting _Revenant_ (and the United Defense Command) had left the newcomers with vastly diminished forces. Cerberus had taken a beating on its war materiel as well, but still had the manpower, just not the ships, necessary to operate a galaxy-spanning navy (especially since many planets backing it were completely destroyed, gutting its "economy"). Thus, instead of ditching its allies right away, Cerberus made an apparently-magnanimous offer to help crew the few ships that were left. In their desperation and fear of "the others," all three members of JVLN went along with it.

Cerberus stole the ships in short order, dumped JVLN crews on random planets (if they were lucky), and consolidated its forces. Neither the Council nor UDC noticed. Then again, had either side tried to bring attention to the situation, it would have been similar to calling the police while committing a crime.

Thinking himself in a position to return Cerberus to its roots, the Illusive Man found himself less difficult to find than his name suggested. Much to his relief, it wasn't the Systems Alliance, Citadel Council, or Trans-Galactic Republic who found him (despite the logos on a clearly-stolen ship). Much to his displeasure, he found himself pressed into the service of a shadowy organization run by someone known only as "The Lady." Mere talk would have been insufficient to convince the Illusive Man to go along with another person's plan, but the operatives arrived with more than that. A centipede-like device forcibly attached itself to his spine, compelling obedience.

"Yes, my lady" were his last words as he signed off.

[…]

The Citadel Council found itself in more and more conflict with the United Defense Command—which was originally an obscure department _inside_ the civilian Citadel government. On one side, supporters of the UDC pointed out that if the Reapers or something similar invaded, the galaxy stood unprepared to repel such an attack. Furthermore, despite the splintering of Sapiens' Shield back into its original components, said components were still dangerous.

On the other hand, garrisoning entire worlds, conscripting populations, and enforcing "military first" policies that gave soldiers the finest consumables available while leaving civilians with nothing did not go over well, no matter how supposedly-benevolent the intent. Too many "bloody Marys" gave the galaxy one hell of a hangover, and now they would do anything, _anything_, to get rid of it.

Like most out-of-control juntas, the UDC walked a fine line between maintaining control and inciting their own rapid downfall. For example, trying to get rid of Donnell Udina and replace him with someone less likely to say idiotic things on the news vids.

"Of course I believe the UDC was justified in its orders to Shepard!" he fumed. "The terrorists were not going to back down otherwise!"

"Councilor, those were civilian worlds with virtually no military presence…could you comment on why that method was used, instead of attacking, for example, their shipyards?"

"Miss Wong, _we are at war_. Sometimes, we have to do things during a war that turn stomachs. Someone has to make that call!"

"Opinion polls show that the citizens of the Alliance do not approve—surely, civilian control of the military still means something?"

"Yes, yes, but unless those civilians are willing to pick up a rifle, they should defer to those who are actually in harm's way."

Wong cut off the interview. "There you have it—the United Defense Command doesn't like difficult questions. Apparently, if the military says jump, everyone else is supposed to ask how high. That doesn't sound like civilian control at all. This has been Emily Wong for ANN!"

Despite the name, the Systems Alliance never directly controlled or funded the Alliance News Network. This became a sore point—UDC brass griped "ANN" gave "unfair legitimacy" to "anti-military" and "unpatriotic" points of view. However, its ownership by a large corporation kept the UDC from attempting to deal with the Alliance News Network too blatantly—the same people in charge of the ANN also contributed heavily to key UDC-supporting politicians in the Alliance Parliament.

On paper, each Council race chose its own representative, so if humanity wanted to recall Udina and send in someone else, they could. The main problem manifested itself in a split between those who wanted someone saner and those who actually agreed with what Udina had to say. The latter category was filled mostly with Cerberus, which meant despite small numbers, these people had a large amount of economic and political power.

As Cerberus peeled away from its old allies, it began to retrench back into its black-ops, share-nothing self. Quiet, unseen power was better than boisterous, loud influence at this point, especially given the decidedly minority size of Cerberus' political support (both among citizens and elected officials). Looking to expand by making "investments" in reluctant politicians, operatives sought out various officials for "one-on-one" chats about "the future of humanity" (which often involved supporting Donnell Udina). Some knuckled under and began surreptitiously supporting pro-Cerberus/pro-UDC positions. Others, however, surreptitiously recorded their encounters, broadcast them to the entire extranet, handed over videos to the media, and generally made a scene. Cerberus, like the United Defense Command, was stuck—"silence" the noisy politicians and by doing so prove their point, openly admit to bribery, or the usual standby?

Problem was, the usual standby of claiming "Rogue cell, rogue cell!" only worked so many times—and the count of incidents that the general public would believe this had been exhausted many "random" explosions ago. Once people learned not to be afraid of Cerberus, it saw a good amount of its "soft power" melt away.

This internal debate among humans rapidly spilled over, dragging the rest of the galaxy into it. Before long, humanity found itself politically besieged by those who sought to influence its face on the Council. Something that would not have happened had the UDC not tried to push Udina out, and Cerberus had not made such an issue about it. This being exactly the type of "alien interference" both Cerberus and the increasingly human-oriented United Defense Command sought to _prevent_.

In order to assuage civilian gripes about subpar treatment vs. the military, the UDC created the Neighborhood Patrol in which civilians could earn "points" that were redeemable for goods reserved under "military first." At first, the program remained benign, people reporting pot-holes, broken windows, and the occasional gangbanger were rewarded with (relatively) rare steaks, prized ales, and first-access to the cinema. However, anti-UDC forces saw an opportunity to turn the program on its makers, while simultaneously making the hated shadow-government look stupid.

Coordination among troublemakers caused several thing to go wrong with the program, all at once. One: a massive surge in signups. Two: Since Neighborhood Patrols were responsible for "the maintenance of order" which was overly-broad on purpose to let the UDC abuse its authority, it would be easy to overwhelm NPs with trivial tasks. Civilians (and some secretly-dissident members of Neighborhood Patrols) flooded Neighborhood Command Centers with angry calls covering just about everything from potholes to people not cleaning up after their varren and late garbage pickup, since all of these things "promoted disorder." Doing nothing would undermine the program; responding to all the requests sucked up resources. Three: The "points system" ended up allowing so many people access to formerly-restricted goods that it defeated the point of aforementioned restrictions, essentially removing the rationing. Four: Trying to get _rid_ of the Neighborhood Patrols required a demobilization order, which was illegal during "times of war," which underpinned the entire reason for the UDC's continued existence.

Either the rationing would end up _de-facto_ removed or the UDC would have to admit there was no longer a war. Furious UDC commanders spent hours in courtrooms screaming at judges, who, doing their job of applying the law, refused to budge off the position that the Neighborhood Patrols could only be disbanded by ending the state of war.

Obviously, such examples of self-contradiction and general incompetence only served to undermine the concept of taking the UDC seriously. The more bluster the junta spewed, the less anyone cared. In a sense, it was hard to not feel sorry for them—they _could_ send storm commandos onto the sets of late night TV shows to put an end to the jokes, they _could_ bomb the civilian centers where UDC troops were tied up patching roads instead of "repossessing" valuable items, they _could_ do a lot of things. But if they did, the population would break into open revolt.

For once, the Council's default position of doing nothing (save Udina's saber-rattling) actually helped. "When your enemy is self-destructing, just sit back and watch" went the most prevalent line of thought. All motions put forward by the human Councilor (such as sanctioning UDC "internment" camps, building more _Infinity_ dreadnaughts, and redirecting tax revenue from battered women's shelters to fund said dreadnaughts) were unceremoniously voted down by the remaining three Councilors. Of course, this egged on Udina's idea that the aliens were "working to keep humanity down" (never mind how utterly ridiculous his proposals were)—which only led to more ridiculous suggestions from him. Rinse, repeat.

Emily Wong pointed out that, minus Trans-Galactic Republic technology, things were headed straight back to where they were before the Reapers invaded—one Councilor raising hell over something, Council does nothing because the one rocking the boat is human (the _same_ human, in fact), shadowy human-supremacist organization making messes…

[…]

Upon waking, the members of Patricia Tannis' survey team settled back into their routine. As much a routine as one could have living on rations and sleeping on hover-mattresses. More towers, more scans.

At a lunch stop, Maya pulled Athena aside.

"Uhhh, just so you know, last night…"

"I was screaming in my sleep, wasn't I?" Athena's voice seemed very small, and her eyes cast downward, as if ashamed.

"Yes. It was that. I have no idea how you don't wake yourself up…"

Athena sniffled. "My past wasn't a barrel of roses either" continued Maya, who put a reassuring arm over the other woman's shoulders. "I can relate to being raised by people whose only agenda was to exploit me."

"What's going on?" Garrus, expecting to find the bottom half of a seismic imager to mount the top half he carried, turned to find not a single seismic imager part in sight. Instead, he found Maya trying to comfort Athena.

"Am I interrupting?"

Athena turned to him. "No. We're just bonding over the fact that growing up for both of us utterly sucked."

"Well, we did get sent down here to dig" interjected Axton. "If we're going to dig up the past, I have a death sentence on my head…and the divorce to prove it."

"Hey!" Maya shot back. "We can hear all about your glory-hounding days later. My story is almost as depressing as Athena's, and I'm going to tell it!" She said this as if the level of depressingness of her story was a point of great pride.

"Alright, alright!" Axton made a motion with his hands suggesting he was backing down. "I'd offer to settle this with a duel, but the New-U system is still busted." He winked at her.

"So, just like Athena, I grew up without parents."

"At least you _had_ parents" sulked Athena.

"Might as well not have. Once someone figured out I was a Siren, they handed me off to a bunch of monks who run my home planet of Athenas. At first, it was just boring, being surrounded by men who do nothing except chant and pray all day. Plus, there weren't any other kids around."

"What use would monks have for a baby? Sounds like one giant distraction" commented Axton.

"Yeah, ordinarily, you'd be right, but this situation was a bit different. See, the Order of the Impending Storm _used_ to rule the planet with an iron fist, but, big surprise, advancements in science caused fewer and fewer people to believe in the 'power of the church to smite wrongdoers.'"

Maya used her boot to draw her former tormenters' hated symbol in the dirt on the passageway floor.

"These guys used to be able to extract money as tithes from virtually the entire population. Then Athenas got the ECHONet and all of the sudden, tithing started to drop. The Order wasn't dumb—they knew lashing out would probably backfire, and quickly. So they decided to play the long game."

"Well, that explains why they would wait over twenty years" said Axton. "They must have been looking at one hell of a payoff!"

"Yep. I was supposed to be the payoff. For years, I was trained to increase the strength and duration of my phaselock" (she levitated a small pebble for effect).

"For a while, that is all I could do, and as soon as I picked it up, I'd drop it. It was massively exhausting, so I practiced hard to lift up bigger objects for a longer time."

"I hope they…did they punish you if you failed to make progress?" asked the soldier.

"No. That was the strange part. They were total hardasses to everyone else on the planet, but not me. The ECHONet was the only thing I was denied, and does it really count as being denied something if you never knew it existed in the first place?"

"Uhh…philosophy was never my strong suit." Garrus shuffled uncomfortably in agreement.

"And how do you train to move things with your mind? Did you stare at spoons until they bent?"

Maya smiled. "Very funny, Garrus. That's not how it worked—there weren't any spoons! It's surprisingly similar to regular physical training. Your body has to be able to withstand the physical strain of channeling the power, so calisthenics are a must. Your mind must be able to remain focused without completely ignoring the physical self in the process—it's kind of complicated."

"So we gathered." Athena spoke up for the first time since Maya began telling of her past. "By the way, your story isn't nearly as depressing as mine." She smirked, as if daring the Siren into a contest.

"If I wanted to beat you, I'd have to invent more stories than Mr. Turrets over there" she replied. "Still, I will say my childhood wasn't exactly an open library…"

Blank stares.

"Oh you people are such knuckledraggers! It's called a _book!_ Bed of roses! Half-price gun store!" (Garrus and Axton high-fived at this).

"Anyway, it took years to increase my lifting limit, by a few ounces at first. Then I might gain a pound or two" (the men snickered, until a glare from Athena silenced them), "until finally I could reliably lift most human-sized objects."

"I saw you lift that giant blue crystalisk" interrupted Axton. "Man, that was a doozy!"

"Did you just say doozy?"

"Yes."

"Again, returning to my story" continued Maya, in a tone of faux annoyance, "the monks finally decided I was ready for my 'unveiling.' Keep in mind their yearly income from tithes had been cut in half at this point, and projections showed that it wouldn't take twenty years more for it to be cut in half a second time."

At this point, Garrus looked at his chronometer—they'd spent almost an hour on lunch. Given that he wasn't particularly fond of seismic tower management, he quickly looked back up, hoping no one else had checked the time. They hadn't.

"There was a huge parade and gathering, because 'the Order has been blessed with the presence of your goddess and savior.' A bunch of them gave grandiose speeches about a new era dawning, peace on Athenas, the usual drivel. Then they did the first of many things which led me to conclude they were idiots—they made me go out to speak to the assembled multitude."

"Public speaking, the horror!" mocked Garrus. "Sam Shepard _loved_ giving speeches. She'd never admit it, but she always got a thrill out of, as humans put it, 'haranguing the multitudes.' Though I never understood why you were supposed to stand on a box made out of soap to do it, since soap is soft and squishy…"

"Shut up" replied Maya, clearly amused. "First of all, it's a 'soap box,' like 'ammo box,' not a box actually made out of soap. Second, when they pushed me out onto a balcony before what was probably ten million people—"

"More like a hundred" said Athena, in a clear stage whisper.

"—whose story is this, mine or yours? The only thing I could think of was 'Uh, hi.' Then I kind of slowly disappeared back behind the curtains."

Striking up a ridiculous pose reminiscent of an overpuffed dictator or other self-aggrandizing figure, she kept going. "'Tell them your name, child!' hissed Brother Sophis. 'Oh, never mind, I'll tell them myself!'"

"So, _child_, what happened next?" Axton grinned, knowing full well where he was headed with the "child" comment.

Placing her hands on her hips, Maya took on a stern expression that was immediately undercut by a barely-controlled giggle fit. "Say that again, and you'll be breathing through a new hole in your skull."

"Ooooh, so the pretty lady has claws!"

"You guys could, you know, get a room" suggested Garrus.

"Or…I could…Finish. My. Story." huffed the Siren, suggesting a great deal of indignation over being constantly interrupted.

Even Athena managed to look less dour.

"So Brother Sophis goes on, and on, and on. I couldn't really hear what he was saying. Honestly, I didn't really care. But then I heard chanting that got louder and louder. 'Maya! Maya! Maya!' Something Lilith would have loved…"

Athena sprung to her feet, pointing at Maya. "Aha! DEPRESSING!" she crowed.

"This is getting a little weird" volunteered Axton. "If we're done using humor as a coping mechanism over the crappy lives we've led, I would actually like to hear the rest of Maya's story."

"Sure thing, FUN-Loader. As I was saying, so I hear this crowd chanting my name, right? Sophis comes back, grabs me by the arm, and hauls me onto the balcony again. There's this guy there, on his knees. He's blubbering, crying, and by the look _and smell_ of it, he's soiled himself."

"Thane told me that Shepard…"

"Garrus, if you start in on another one of those Shepard stories, I'll have to decide between being in my sleeping bag and taping your mouth shut."

"Axton, dude, ew!" squeaked Maya, in a similar tone to whenever she found a sticky vehicle seat. "I might have to do some mouth-taping of my own if you guys don't stop talking!"

"Be careful with that" came Athena's deadpan voice. "Someone might like it."

"So let me describe _in great detail_ the back-side of this man's pants. There was a big brown smear, and…" She trailed off, noticing that her appeal to the disgusting had the desired effect, before resuming.

"He kept crying, 'Not her, not her! I'll pay your tithe! Just don't let her near me!' I didn't get it at first. I later found out that aside from not paying his tithe, he was told all sorts of horrors would befall him if I decided to 'punish' him. For a bunch of uptight monks, these guys were pretty creative—first they said I would kill him. But before I 'slit his throat,' apparently I was going to have some 'fun,' since according to the old sexually repressed men in robes, I'm secretly an insatiable sadomasochistic dominatrix who loves humiliating men. In bed."

Now that she thought about it, the last part wasn't needed. She still felt like it was a worthwhile addition, though.

"The best part? Or is it worst part? The people they were threatening with my divine wrath were these very chaste, pure types who still believed everything was 'as the good book said.' So, threatening them with a sexually-confident, dominant woman scared the piss out of them. Literally. They even built a whole bed-chamber they walked the men through before being dragged onstage. It had graphic photos of what 'I' supposedly did to my 'conquests.' Anyone with half a brain could see they PixelChopped my head onto some two-bit porn actresses from the ECHONet. These men probably barely even saw their wives naked, so their reactions were understandable. I don't want to sound like Moxxi here, but seriously? My chest is definitely better than those!"

Maya had taken on a smug look, as if she was some kind of anti-repression warrior spraying clean the gutters her former Order had clogged.

"Now, I have nooooooo idea where these _men of faith_ could have _possibly_ learned how to accurately construct a dominatrix's bedchamber…"

"Oh boy, if Brick were here, you'd never get past this part of the story!" laughed Axton.

"I am going to finish telling this story if I have to pin you all down with spare seismic towers and stuff your mouths with extra bandages!"

Maya stopped, realizing exactly what she'd just said, in context of what she'd said thirty seconds previously.

"Oh wow, that came out really wrong…"

"Yep" replied everyone else.

"Once I figured that out, all Sophis' yapping about 'sinners' and 'bad men' kind of went in one ear and out the other. So I phaselocked his sorry ass, ventilated his head, and got the hell off that rock."

"So, given that we've nearly busted our guts laughing, _how_ was that story depressing?" inquired Athena. "I mean, if you were going to try to earn some sympathy, I'd have expected some mention of being locked up, starved, inappropriately touched…"

"First, not funny. Second, I guess it really wasn't depressing. Reliving the past can be fun—sometimes things aren't as bad as we thought they were!"

"Or sometimes they're worse" mumbled Athena.

"You didn't…"

"I watched one minute of it. I wasn't telling the truth when I said I hadn't ever seen what I'd done" came a flat, emotionless voice. "I can't even describe it in words."

"Maybe scanning for some purple rock can take our minds off…stuff?" asked Axton.

"Let's do that" said Garrus. "I guess this is what it feels like to be Commander Shepard—having to play therapist all the time because everyone brings you their problems."

"True, but it's when your friends _stop_ bringing you their problems that you know something is truly wrong."

"Since when did Athena, queen of the traumatic past, ever have to play warrior-therapist?" demanded Maya.

Wearing a self-satisfied grin, she replied "You don't want to know. You _really_ don't want to know."


	7. Once More, With Feeling

A/N: Bonus chapter! The writing's going well, so more than once-a-week this week!

In other news, I gotta ask: Did I put in something somewhere that says no reviews allowed? (I've noticed some other writers ask for critiques in author notes and I operated under the assumption people would do that without prodding for some reason—well, here's your prod :P)

**Chapter 7 – Once More, With Feeling**

More than a month elapsed since the end of the Reaper War and the beginning of what appeared to be a reversion-to-the-norm among Citadel races. It was thus only mildly surprising that Citadel Control resembled the pandemonium which reigned every time Serrice Council dealers held an "open shop" when a new giant unknown thing showed up. Known for being one of the few entities which picked and chose its own customers (via rigorous background-screening processes), it was difficult to even get on an application list, let alone make it through. These "open shop" days allowed the public to see what, exactly, they were missing. Potential customers queued for hours just to _look_ at equipment—most of the time it was not even powered on due to fears of "industrial espionage."

"Check those scans again!" came the reedy voice of Chief Traffic Controller Exxallin.

"What, like we triple-checked that huge dreadnaught?" muttered a junior traffic officer. "It's not like we've seen ships that size before—oh wait, we have!"

Whatever it was, the signature at the Citadel relay displayed as a massive blob over a hundred kilometers long.

"Where do they find the resources to build these things?" wondered another who had been on duty the day _Revenant_ arrived. The new ship, or likely ships, represented an even larger force than the last time non-Reaper forces showed up uninvited on the Citadel's doorstep. As the blob closed in, it became apparent this new arrival was both a fleet rather than a single ship and actively obfuscating itself.

With information sent by Grayson, the Great Opportunities Fleet made easy contact with the Citadel. No tense standoffs or being chased (anything trying to attack this fleet would have been a fly against a meteor, anyway).

"Great Opportunities Fleet to the Citadel, we come in peace!" began Fleet Admiral Allison Nimitz. "No seriously, we aren't here to kill anyone."

The Council found that hard to believe-another giant dreadnaught, forty eight heavy cruisers, and hundreds of smaller support craft. Two long vessels that didn't mount any obviously-large armament were assumed to be carriers. It was if a krogan battlemaster showed up with 10,000 at his back, "just to say hello"—actually, that sequence of events might have been more probable, some thought.

But the "battle-waiting-to-happen" was not to be.

"The extradimensional weirdoes sent us" she continued, "You know, back when the Reapers were still attacking. We've been authorized to help you prepare just in case any more purple squid show up—that means full technology sharing, by the way."

Word quickly spread throughout the galaxy—_more_ of those Trans-Galactic Republic super-ships. More humans. Some non-humans really began to wonder if this was all some sort of carefully-orchestrated ploy to let _Homo sapiens_ completely take over the galaxy. Then again, that last phrase got absolutely _everyone's_ attention. Any attempt to "take over" would do very badly if all advantages were given away!

For alleged human supremacists, the Trans-Galactic Republic did a very poor job of it, as any Cerberus vessels were automatically flagged hostile (and sometimes shot at). Something about "basically blew up the last super-capital ship we sent here" might have had an influence there.

The second fleet arrived soon after, containing hundreds of behemoth freighters. The _smallest_ were over two hundred meters in length, while many larger cargo-carriers eclipsed the kilometer mark. Like deprived peasants forced to watch a caravan of plenty arriving at the monarch's palace, the citizens of the Citadel's galaxy gathered awestruck at the sheer size of the operation unfolding before them.

"This time, we're not going to play favorites, but we _are_ going to be responsible" vowed Fleet Admiral Nimitz.

Admiral Grayson found himself summoned by his newly-arrived superior. He was pretty sure there would be "items of concern," but at the same time he felt the brass couldn't be _too_ hard on him given the circumstances. No laws had been broken—it would simply be a case of judging judgment.

_Do not comment on her looks_ he reminded himself. Not that it was standard practice to use crude pickup lines on officers—rather, looking-thirty-five-chronometer-says-eighty generally invited questions. Adam Grayson didn't quite look his age either, but such an extreme difference between years lived and appearance was a rare gift, even in a society where most could expect to live more than a century. It also made dating awkward.

He saluted as Nimitz entered the conference room. _Revenant_-class dreadnaughts were known for their sweeping interior designs in addition to huge firepower, and _Ultimatum_ did not break the trend. For some reason, it was necessary to have multiple views out over the ship's bow. For intimidation, impressing people, or some other reason he did not know, but such "grand" visages were practically a requirement on any Star Dreadnaught-size vessel.

"At ease, Admiral. You're not in trouble, I just wanted to go over what happened to make sure I understand exactly what we're dealing with here."

"A very divided galaxy that seems to get into metaphorical, excuse the language, pissing contests every time technology comes up" he replied. "Every species seems to take any advancement of another as a zero-sum game."

"And why shouldn't they?" countered Nimitz. "Our scans show that the asari, in particular, have something very big they are hiding. Are you familiar with the Temple of Athame?"

"I thought your entire fleet was here!" spluttered Grayson. "Even our sensors don't reach that far!"

"They do mounted on _Vorknkx_-class intelligence ships."

Grayson knew about these black-ops, seldom-discussed vessels. Unarmed, but nearly impossible to detect and _very_ fast, _Vorknkx_ vessels could slip in and out of a system to gather useful intel. Such as what had apparently been brought to the attention of Admiral Nimitz.

"So, what did you find?"

"The Temple has a strange energy signature. One that is suggestive of a massive power source within—much more than would be necessary for a structure of its size."

"So? They hid a military or black-ops base in a temple. Not unusual."

"Actually" Allison began, "it is very unusual. Our scout units" (_She's thorough_ thought Grayson) "found a piece of technology disguised as a statue of a goddess. Easy to wirelessly lift a copy with our sensors—it's an intact Prothean beacon."

"Forgive me" came the reply, "I'm not up to speed on the anthropology and history of Gamma-Six…"

"The Protheans were an extremely advanced, relative to the current inhabitants, race that vanished millennia ago. As you're aware, the extra-galactic Reapers showed up and tried to destroy all life in this galaxy. Thanks to Trans-Galactic Republic reinforcements and clever engineering, that didn't happen. Gamma-Six has based most of its technology off the so-called 'mass relays' and Element Zero, believing them both to be Prothean discoveries. This is not true—the technology predates the Protheans, though their understanding of this technology eclipses even our own, for the moment."

"Is this history class, or does this have something to do with the Temple of Athame?" Grayson gave Nimitz a bemused look.

"The Protheans vanished, but left some of their technology behind in time capsule-like devices. Including the one on Athame."

Comprehension dawned on the Admiral's battle-weary face. "It is illegal under Citadel law to hide Prothean technology from others" he started. His voice rose. "So the asari, who claim they simply happen to be the most advanced, kept an intact cheat sheet all while demanding anyone else hand it over."

"Yep. Imagine what would happen if that knowledge left this room."

"We'd have the same 'tech wars' all over again, except first everyone would gang up on the asari, then pick the corpse and use it to beat each other to death."

Allison winced. "Graphic, but accurate."

"You've studied the salarians."

"Of course I have, Adam, I had plenty of time to read the packet you sent me on my way out here!"

"I ask this not out of malice, but pure curiosity. The salarians messed with the galaxy once—they turned the krogan into a race of supersoldiers to beat back the rachni. It worked, but then the krogan became the new problem. You said 'full tech sharing.' How are we going to make sure we don't cause the same thing to happen?"

Allison's response might have been mistaken for a teenager who thought they were cool for talking their way into renting an R-rated movie.

"Check this out…"

[…]

"Oh for fuck's sake" sighed Athena. "You're telling us you want us to _drive_ all the way to the lower continent, retrieve a monster piece of machinery, and bring it back here?"

"Mapping these tunnels is proving far too slow" huffed Patricia Tannis. "My readings indicate that if we drill deep enough, there seems to be a phenomenon at the center of this planet that should not exist."

"Okay, quit with the vague scientist-speak" joshed Garrus. "Just tell us what's down there. We spent weeks crawling through tunnels for you!"

"If you say it's loot, I'm going to slap you" interjected Maya. "Yeah" agreed Axton. "Not gonna fall for that one again!"

An explosion put an end to discussion of whatever might reside in Pandora's depths. Then another. Then another.

"Really?" sighed Tannis. "Must my work always be disturbed by lowlifes who insist on using explosives instead of words?"

"Hey" replied Maya. "Sometimes we Vault Hunters need to use those explosives, and we've saved your butt before!"

"Let's find out what the hell is going on" suggested Axton. "We should…"

Garrus had disappeared, and no one had noticed. He returned. "You're not going to like this."

Having climbed the stairs to the lab entrance, he'd stuck his head out to see what exactly was responsible for all the shaking and booming.

"There are several extremely large armored vehicles engaged in combat above us" he shouted to be heard over the increasing sound from the conflict. "Oddly enough, by the markings painted on them, they seem to belong to the same side!"

"Some kind of friendly-fire mishap?" wondered Athena.

"Definitely not!" replied the turian. "One of them has lost its right track, and another keeps beating on it."

"Do you recognize the logo?" shouted Maya.

"It's not a logo! It's a word!"

"Okay, which one of the megacorps is making a giant mess?" sighed Axton. "My bet's on Hyperion."

"No! Jakobs!"

The lab shook again, and a few bits of dirt came loose from the ceiling.

"If we stay down here, we may get buried" said Athena, uncharacteristically calm considering the situation.

"And if we go up there, we might get decapitated" countered Garrus. "But what choice do we have?"

A piece of the ceiling fell and landed on Tannis's work table, burying some paper and smashing a recording rod.

"That's it, we're leaving!" snapped Axton, switching to full-on commando leader mode. "Move out!"

The four plus one very rattled scientist hustled up crumbling stairs and out of the underground lab. Garrus took stock of the situation.

"Heavy tank on the left, and two on the right!" he bellowed.

"Tank? TANK? That looks more like a building!" gasped Athena.

"I would say those have to be at least a hundred meters tall, if not taller" mused Axton. "Let's make sure they don't see us, or hit us."

[...]

So far, her plan seemed to have worked inasmuch as the rest of the family paid her no heed when she immediately left the shareholder meeting to attend to other urgent business. Unfortunately, Jackie wasn't the only one with a certain destination in mind, resulting in the current conflict.

"Keep firing and keep them pinned" she instructed a nearby gunner. The _Deadwood_-class Mobile Fortresses were exceptionally proficient at holding territory. As such, their massive treads (and widely-dispersed weight) crushed anything in their way. Thick armor repelled all but the most powerful charges, and onboard fusion generators guaranteed years of energy.

She'd brought two, against Bart's one. However, one of hers was stuck since it had lost a track.

In typical Jakobs family fashion, a fight broke out when both parties didn't even know exactly what they were fighting over. Bart visited the slums to enlist several smuggler friends in trying to sneak his _Deadwood_ onto Pandora without anyone noticing. Jackie cared nothing for subtlety and had hers orbital-dropped. He thought the former site of the Prime Vault might hold something of value and was planning on blasting his way through the Trans-Galactic Republic cordon. She noticed the coordinates etched into the bottom of the grip of her sentimental Judge pistol were similar to the _Infinity_ crash site, where she knew a noted Eridian expert was supposed to be working. Further Eridian script decorated the weapon, but Jackie couldn't read it, hence her interest. It seemed that in cases such as this, the coordinates were more a "close enough" rather than "drill here."

Regardless of the reason for the fight, the Trans-Galactic Republic security ring collapsed under the weight of three rolling fortresses. It had been designed and intended to handle the occasional bandit raid, not a push by fully-armed and military-equipped individuals. Jackie and Bart were pragmatic enough to smash a common foe, _then_ turn on each other. Jackie likely would have won, but the fight against the Trans-Galactic Republic left the aforementioned track damage to Elephant Two, turning it into an immobile bunker of limited use.

"We have to move quickly" said Jackie to her assault team. "Find the scientist who was working here and grab her, then we need to leave before the Trans-Galactic Republic starts bombarding this place with ion blasts."

"Get to the transport!" yelled Garrus, as the rest charged past him. Steady "thunks" from his sniper rifle dropped several Jakobs soldiers to the ground.

Less than a minute later, two-finger, one-thumb limbs flew over control panels as Garrus powered up their escape vehicle. Kinetic impacters slammed into the hull, some charged with various special effects. Warning lights appeared across several status displays.

"We have ignition, let's get out of here!"

Both engines lost power at the same time.

[FUEL EMPTY] showed on the primary display.

"Seriously?" gasped Garrus, exasperated.

A smirking Jackie Jakobs returned her sniper rifle to her side. "Track that shuttle, and relay its location once it hits. And get some medical supplies together; people tend to get hurt in crashes."

[...]

"So if we set up an old theory of power balance used for millions of years, that will keep our Citadel friends from tearing each other apart? You're seriously considering helping them build even more dangerous ships than what they already managed to put together?" Grayson was nothing short of incredulous.

"The designs at the SETTLE Center—that stands for Ship Enrichment, Technology Transfer, and Lightspeed Enhancement as if someone didn't spend a ridiculous amount of time making sure that made a word—only need an infusion of Trans-Galactic Republic power generation technology to be viable. They are currently trapped by the vicious cycle of needing more power, which makes the reactor larger, bloating out the ship, which itself needs more energy. Without sufficiently dense generation methods, their engineers won't be able to escape this trap."

The conference table switched to projection mode, the pilfered design appearing in relatively high detail. The ship, 12,800m long, would have terrible handling, mediocre weapons, a slow hyperdrive, and only light armor relative to its size.

"Project Olympic" was truly a titanic undertaking, but it was destined to fail. Unless…

"Trans-Galactic Republic technology could chop that ship down to eight hundred meters."

"Excuse me, Allison, did I hear you correctly?" Grayson found himself unable to believe what he was hearing, again. "Chop twelve kilometers off that design?"

Allison responded as though he'd questioned the existence of gravity.

"The primary weapons are inertial-confinement-fusion-mass-accelerators, which don't require kilometers of focus circuitry or huge cooling systems. Their lasers are insufficiently miniaturized to make this practical. The reactor is several orders of magnitude larger in volume than what proper hypermatter annihilation would require to generate the same amount of energy—of course, that amount of output in a ship 800m long is perfectly fine."

"I thought the six-kilometer dreadnaughts were inefficient… They have a lot further to go than I thought when it comes to starship engineering!"

Grayson was just shaking his head at this point.

"Think about it this way. In the surface Navy, if a ship was built purely around a very large rail gun with literally no other purpose, why have the extra reactor capacity for ECM, aircraft, secondary batteries, and the like? Now, try building the same rail gun ship, but with all the extras. Ship gets much, much bigger. Add in a primitive power generation system and the ship becomes larger still!"

"The _Infinities_ are basically flying guns—with a few token turbolasers…"

"Really, it's one of the worst designs I've ever seen." She motioned for him to follow. "We're going to go SETTLE this once and for all!"

[...]

Tali'Zorah vas Normandy and Gaige managed to reconcile their differences, at least enough to tackle a shared foe: the vicious cycle of expansion caused by insufficiently powerful reactors being bloated out to provide energy, which grew the ship, demanding a larger energy source…

The pair were panting and sweating as if they'd run a marathon—in reality, the two spent 48 straight hours on design/simulation with only minimal breaks.

"Do you think this might be a bit over our heads?" Tali's head dropped forward in an admission of defeat.

"I've never run into…"

"…a challenge I couldn't solve" finished the quarian.

Tali waved a datapad in frustration. "The math _works_, but we need a material that doesn't exist!"

"Well" began Gaige, "if we used hyper-compressed, high-concentration Eridium slag as coolant to let us ramp up generation it might work…"

"And kill the entire crew if the reactor breached" laughed Tali. "Never mind the environmental disaster of extracting that stuff as fuel!"

Gaige swore she could see her helmeted partner's nose wrinkle through her visor at the thought.

The absurdity of it all—possibly the two best engineers Pandora and Citadel space had ever seen, stumped by one little equation: joules per second per cubic meter of reactor volume. Still, Tali had to admit it felt a lot better than the last time she'd worked on a big project. The _Infinities_, actually, that entire period, just felt…dark. Nasty. Slimy, as if the air itself had been contaminated.

She could barely stand to think about Shepard anymore. It just tore her apart inside that the once-good light of the galaxy had turned _evil_. Tali knew Shepard had a rough life and that the loss of Liara hit her hard, though that still served as pitiful compensation for murdering civilians "because orders are orders." A shadow had been cast over her former Commander, one that compelled Tali to request (and receive) the transfer to SETTLE rather than SSV _Normandy_ or the fancy UDC _Aspirations Toward Infinity_. Which had ended up destroyed, somehow.

"Serves them right" she huffed. "Those ships have never represented anything other than power-mad warmongering!"

Gaige was about to ask if Tali had heard anything about Shepard, but thought better of it. Brick _had_ mentioned both having to, ahem, _restrain_ Commander Shepard during the climactic battle at her little castle, and having taken a high-speed intergalactic trip to see the results of what he'd done. Knowing Brick, "restraint" was probably a gross mischaracterization.

She vowed to ask him when he came back from Pandora.

A large commotion drew everyone to the massive viewports on the side of the engineering deck.

"Well, someone is bringing home something!" yelped Gaige. "Let's hope it's cool!"

Sixteen ships appeared to be headed for the complex. They were some kind of freighter given their odd shape-trapezoidal containers arranged in groups of three around a set of engines. Visible turrets tracked for threats.

Several smaller craft darted among the blocky contraptions. One headed for SETTLE's docking bay—looked about fighter-size.

"I wonder who could be visiting this facility with so many ships" mused Tali. "This facility's location is classified and most big shipments are Alliance…"

"Look at the drawing on the wing of that shuttle. It's the Republicans, or whatever they are."

Trust a teenager to call a logo a drawing and the Trans-Galactic Republic the "Republicans." Though, technically, the latter was correct—it was simply not how they referred to themselves.

The pair headed to the reception hanger. A large group of Trans-Galactic Republic troopers in blue armor stood in mostly-ceremonial lines as two passengers disembarked from the assault shuttle previously visible from the engineering design deck.

"I recognize the man—that's Admiral Grayson! The commander of the supership _Revenant_."

"He's the one who started this whole mess by giving out technology like candy" said Gaige darkly. "If it wasn't for him—"

"—we'd be dead" finished Tali. "We had no chance against the Reapers—not without a more unified strategy. And more dreadnaughts."

"Those robot servants of yours have a ton of them!" Gaige wilted under, again, a look that came through a visor.

_She's really good at that_.

"The geth were willing to work with us building ships, but refused to commit significant forces during the initial engagement" lectured the quarian. "Thus, most of the fight fell on the Migrant Fleet in our system prior to the Trans-Galactic Republic's arrival."

Little did they notice the two officials in uniforms were standing in front of them, awaiting acknowledgement.

"Were you looking for us?" inquired Tali.

"Yes. I remember you, Tali—you were the one who I heard motor-mouthed one of my soldiers with questions after decon." The admiral's look was kindly, no insult was intended. "Just wait until you see what we brought!"

"Well, what is it?" Gaige practically bounced through the ceiling.

"A solution to all your problems with that atrocious ship design" deadpanned the younger-looking woman.

Tali did a double-take. "Wait, am I reading something wrong, or is she the superior officer?"

"Looks aren't everything" replied Allison Nimitz, doing her best impression of a grandmotherly voice.

"Let me guess, you're secretly seventy! Nobody that looks as young as you gets to be a Fleet Admiral!"

Gaige's eyes bulged out when the response was "No, eighty."

_"_Take us to the engineering deck once you've picked your jaws up off the floor" laughed Grayson.

_"_And yes, I meant what I said about 'worst design ever'" continued the Fleet Admiral, using the tactile controls with some skill despite never seeing them before.

"Almost all this length is unnecessary—you're having problems with power density. You can't get enough joules per second per cubic meter of reactor. You get stuck in a vicious cycle: more power, bigger reactor, bigger ship, more power."

"Uhh, yes, that's exactly what we're running into here…how did you know?" Tali didn't understand. Even Adam Grayson wasn't briefed on this project, and at any rate, it was classified COSMIC TOP SECRET. So to hear such confident assertions from the woman, whose name was Allison Nimitz, totally confused her.

"We have our methods of obtaining information" she replied cryptically. The pair decided not to press. _Vorknkx_, thought Grayson. _That underhanded, sneaky, cheating…_

"Needless to say, Trans-Galactic Republic reactor technology is orders of magnitude more powerful per cubic meter of volume than anything used in your galaxy. Even the _Aspirations Toward Infinity_ reactors, which were a sort of compromise design, are nowhere near as potent as our common hypermatter reactor."

The datapad handed over detailed exactly what such "hypermatter" reactors could produce: exactly what Tali and Gaige had been looking for.

"WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Gaige proceeded to yell, scream, and run in circles around the design floor in a most undignified (but understandable given her age) way. Tali sighed. Allison laughed. Grayson tried not to smile.

"Kids these days. She must be a prodigy to be here."

"Indeed she is" remarked Tali. "For a seventeen-year-old, she can certainly tackle rather difficult engineering questions with elegant and simple solutions, most of the time."

Turning away from the graying man, she handed a datapad to the other Admiral. "This is what we came up with, and your new reactor precisely solves the problem we face. The problem is, the last time someone handed out new tech like candy it kind of produced a fascist government."

Hands went to (very wide, compared to human) hips, arms crossed. Pout.

"Ever heard of MAD?" queried Allison.

Tali still couldn't believe this human's age. Most 80-year-old humans she'd met looked significantly older, and were far frailer.

"Mutually Assured Destruction" she continued. "No one offends anyone else, because if one person throws a tantrum, the whole galaxy will explode."

"Pandora kinda has that" said Gaige. "And I don't think it works all that well."

"Gaige, I don't think borderline corporatist anarchy counts as MAD" countered Tali. "It might on a personal level among a bunch of bandits, but Admiral Nimitz is referring to governments having the ability to destroy each other, not some kind of bandit standoff.

"How well has your ratio-set military been working out?" demanded Grayson. "Letting the turians have complete naval dominance might not be the best solution, even if they aren't hostile. Remember, it was a turian, following turian philosophy, who caused the turn toward darkness."

"Oh, we are _not_ having the race talk" spat Tali. "What's next, quarians are scavengers who steal everything before moving on?"

"Would it hurt to have other people talking besides the ones with the most guns when it's time to go to war?"

As usual, Gaige's simple question brought the bickering to a screeching halt.

"Look at your history" began Allison. "The Krogan Rebellions might have turned out differently if the genophage was opened as a deterrent, rather than simply dropping the bomb, so to speak. The turians quite literally jumped the gun! Those you look to in war may not be the best ones to win peace."

"Right now, the galaxy's power structure has a vacuum in it" continued Grayson. "There is a chance to 'reset' how the government is run—an opportunity to bring in many who previously lacked any say in the mechanics of keeping a galaxy spinning."

A priority newsflash interrupted the discussion.

"This is Emily Wong, ANN. Reports are coming in that Councilor Donnell Udina has been assassinated. There are no leads at this time, but ANN has officially confirmed his death through several sources."

[...]

Kai Leng, having escaped any repercussions from his brazen killing of a comatose Liara T'Soni, so far stood 2-for-2. Or 3-for-3 if you counted the successful kidnapping of Oriana, though the girl later died. Donnell Udina's head was found sitting on his own desk with the body on the balcony outside by shocked Citadel cleaning personnel.

Like his former employer the Illusive Man, he received a visit from shadowy forces claiming to serve "The Lady." He now worked for her, it, them, or whatever "The Lady" represented. Unlike his former employer, he needed no convincing once he'd been informed of the Illusive Man's situation.

"The target has been terminated. Does my Lady have further orders for me?"

The visage of a woman (if indeed it was a woman, and not a vocal-processor and holo-disguise, or even computer program) shook a head sprouting shoulder-length black and blonde hair. "No further orders, Daimon Leng."

He swore any time the communication channel was closed, her/its eyes were the last thing to fade. They were as red as blood, as intense as stars. Kai Leng was not one to be easily intimidated, but those eyes…


	8. Show and Tell

**Chapter 8 – Show and Tell**

The engineering design deck was no longer empty. Project Olympic might have hit a wall (which meant only Tali and Gaige spent significant amounts of time there anymore), but the big vid-screen often used for computer aided design and conferencing was also great for the news.

Many staff gathered to hear the latest updates on the death of Donnell Udina.

"The following images are graphic, and may disturb sensitive viewers" warned Emily Wong.

A camera panned across Udina's office, stopping on the desk. A severed human head could be seen. Only a small amount of blood pooled on the desk—it appeared the assassin's weapon cauterized almost as it cut, resulting in less of a mess than the usual decapitation. The camera moved further into the office, zooming in on the body visible through glass doors on the balcony. Again, minimal blood.

"Maintenance staff discovered the body approximately thirty minutes ago. Once it was confirmed the deceased individual was in fact the Human Councilor, we were able to make the initial report" she continued. "The killer or killers left nothing behind. C-Sec is currently investigating a motive, and reviewing surveillance footage during the time period in question. Analysis of the cuts revealed no trace of any known weapon."

"Well, that's weird" muttered Tali. "It seems like every time the chronometer chimes, we're facing something new!"

[…]

Commander Armando Bailey thought he'd seen it all. Many times. Only to be proven wrong by the next hour of newsreels.

From rogue Vis to rampaging Spectres, he'd dealt with many unique situations during his time with C-Sec. Figuring out how someone got past the heavy security around Councilor offices, murdered a Councilor, and escaped without leaving a trace definitely brought out his inner detective.

He turned to one of his Crime Scene Investigators. "So the Councilor just got decapitated in one fell swoop?"

"Yes sir. Whatever was used left a residual heat trail, cauterized as it went, and made a very clean cut. No weapon I know of can do that."

"Given that we just chased off a bunch of extra-galactic space squids intent on killing us with the assistance of super-powered starships from another galaxy, there are probably a lot of things we 'don't know of'" he replied.

He turned to look around the office, now a crime scene.

"Find anything of interest here?"

"That is the most frustrating thing about this" replied another CSI. The woman walked over from the end of the late Udina's desk. "There is absolutely, positively no evidence here other than a dead body. It's like the perfect crimes in omnitool vids!"

"Heh. At least it's not boring—like that latest best-seller. Who reads _poetry_? In the middle of a war, no less?"

A formerly-obscure poet named Elizabeth Booker hailing from London on Earth rocketed to the top of the bestseller charts. How one wrote poetry about technology, war, and destruction escaped the mind of the grizzled C-Sec veteran. Her works mainly focused on current or recently-passed events, warning against over-reliance on technology to solve problems. Some wrote eloquently on the power of unity, which struck more than a few as odd given the last time the galaxy "unified," it turned very fascist in tone.

"Sir, I might have to disagree—unsolvable crimes with zero leads might be classified as boring" replied the CSI.

"Finish imaging the scene" replied Bailey. "Then bring in cleaning crews. We are going through Councilors like water."

[...]

Kai Leng packed away his remaining equipment after ending his communication with The Lady. The sword (was that the right term?) she gave him was difficult to use, but extremely potent as it sliced through nearly anything. Even better, the entire blood-red "blade" disappeared when needed, leaving only a cylindrical handle. Thankfully for Leng, his Cerberus cybernetics gave him the strength to (clumsily) use the weapon.

He had been ordered to disappear for the time being. Easy enough in a stolen Trans-Galactic Republic vessel equipped with virtually perfect visual and sensor-masking technology. Apparently, the Illusive Man himself had been restrained in one of the chairs…

[...]

Garrus Vakarian wished the battered utility transport he now tried to fly without engine power could have been a little more inconspicuous. He hadn't spotted any anti-aircraft weapons on the gigantic tanks that had been duking it out above their heads, but the possibility could not be ruled out.

_That said, it's highly unlikely an anti-aircraft weapon would have the precision to cut both fuel lines_ he thought.

"What hit us?" demanded Maya.

"A sniper" he replied. "Not as good as me" (the turian drew out those five words) "but very close. Snipped both fuel lines, which is why we're currently falling without propulsion."

"If we are going to die, I must say I can imagine worse people to die with" huffed Patricia Tannis.

"Oh, thanks" replied Axton. "Glad to know we can make your death experience more pleasant."

Athena spoke up. "I think whoever shot us down didn't want us to die. If they had, most likely one of the tanks would have taken some shots at us."

"Maybe not kill us" replied Garrus, "just maim, or seriously injure us! Brace!"

CRUNCH.

"At least the airbags worked" came a muffled voice. Maya's face got buried in such a device as it deployed.

"Let's see how flyable this thing is" said Athena. "Anything broken? Bleeding? No? Let's move!"

Unstrapping themselves from crash webbing, the four adventurers and one scientist donned the cold-weather gear they'd taken off minutes before prior to venturing outside their wrecked ride. If such could be called good news, the spaceframe remained mostly intact. Just a few gouges on the nose and scrapes on the belly since the ship didn't have much speed built up when it was shot down. Garrus wisely opened every flap available to further kill momentum prior to impact. Several were torn off.

Pointing to one such flap which had been twisted away from its proper position, Garrus remarked "Looks like atmospheric flight just got tougher. Should be fine in space though."

Athena ducked back inside, grabbed what weapons she could find and passed them out. "We don't know who took us out, and we also have no idea what kind of wildlife calls this part of Pandora home."

"Bullymongs, maybe" suggested Maya. "It's pretty cold up here near the pole…"

"No scientific expeditions have surveyed this area" sniffed Tannis. "Though, I find myself in agreement with Maya's conjecture."

A distant roar sounding distinctly artificial caused the quartet to perk up.

"Sounds like whoever brought us down is coming to collect us" shouted Axton. "Collect this!"

Out came his Sabre Turret, equipped with a shield and rocket launchers.

FWIP. FWIP. FWIP FWIP FWIP.

Garrus dropped his rifle, now mangled. Athena reacted just in time to catch the bottom half of the magazine loaded into her assault rifle as it was sliced in half. Maya took on a look of furious indignation—she'd been in the middle of equipping a different Personal Enhancement Device only for a round to rip it in half.

"Blasphemy!" she spat. "Who shoots BOOKS?"

Tannis had wisely dropped to the ground. Axton remained untouched, thanks to his Sabre Turret and its shield. However, given the appearance of laser-dot sights on all party members, he decided to refrain from firing lest anyone else be hit.

"Grenade!"

Before anyone could react to Maya's shout, said grenade detonated, shattering the shields of all within its blast radius.

Maya looked up at a hovering skiff and its armed passengers.

"How the hell is that even _practical_?" she demanded of the woman at the steering station.

"You wish you could look this good and still kick ass" cooed Jackie. Some kind of bodysuit that did not appear to afford any protection, way too much cleavage, long hair, _and high heels_. Four things most sane combatants didn't have. _In polar cold._

"You're coming with us, sweetie. Don't even think of trying to escape, it would be most unwise."

"What do you want?" snarled Axton. "We've fought our way out of worse."

"Yes, but with the New-U system destroyed and the possibility of me introducing a bullet into cute little Patricia here, would you really want to try?"

Too late, the four noticed the scientist being frog-marched onto another, landed, skiff. A dot-sight, projected straight from Jackie Jakob's DeadShot rifle, played over Patricia Tannis before returning to center-mass on Axton.

Jackie took on a posture of sophistication. "I was going to ask nicely" she said airily, "but my rude, rude family member of a type I can't be bothered to remember showed up and ruined everything."

She let out an exaggerated sigh, as if the whole situation were a mere annoyance.

"You see, there are very few who can decipher Eridian script. I was hoping our insanely smart friend here might be willing to assist." She held the pistol out grip-first toward Tannis. As soon as her hand closed around the grip, Tannis yelped in shock.

"Ah ah ah! Looky looky, but no touchie!" crooned the Jakobs heir.

"She is the most annoying person since Face McShooty!" whispered Maya.

In a flash, Jackie stood behind her mouthy captive—knife against the Siren's throat. A deadly, almost seductive, whisper emanated from her. "What was that dear? I must have misheard, unless you actually called me annoying."

"The rumors about you seem to be true" grimaced the Siren, ignoring the blade which was pressing further into her throat. "Baby talk, ruthlessness, obnoxious…"

Maya never finished her sentence as Jackie clubbed her over the head with the handle of her knife.

"The rest of you can join her in unconsciousness, or keep your mouths shut" snapped Jackie, in a decidedly less (fake) friendly tone of voice. "Maybe I'll keep Axton awake—and subject him to a different form of torture…"

She could see the mercenary struggling to control his conflicted feelings—"Bitch!" he gasped. On the other hand, he was clearly aroused by her presence.

"Load them up, and set course for the Family Tree."

[...]

Tali and Gaige were hauled before the Council, or what was left of it.

"This turn of events has been most unfortunate" opined Tevos. "And now, more disruptive forces have arrived from beyond our borders. The last time we listened to such outsiders, we nearly tore ourselves apart!"

The mini-rant would probably have better been aimed at the actual individuals responsible, rather than two innocent engineers, but the pair ignored Tevos' outburst. "That said" continued the matriarch, "brushes with fascism are preferable to extinction."

"You summoned us to discuss the feasibility of new Trans-Galactic Republic technology being incorporated into ships" lectured the quarian, as if to say "Why'd you call us if you're not going to let us talk?"

"Indeed we did" replied Clethon. "Yet again, we find ourselves facing innumerable variables, unsolvable equations."

"And we're just going to complicate things" smirked Gaige.

"Please, tell us more about how technology is going to create a huge mess" said Victus.

"Well, for starts, that giant dreadnought you put us to work on? Totally impossible! If you don't increase the power yield per cubic meter—"

Tali spun the hyperactive girl around. "You're boring the Council with tech!" she hissed.

"Right. Anyhow, the major and minor goddesses of engineering had a divine revelations courtesy of the Republicans—put one of their reactors in and suddenly the ship shrinks. Goes from being this big" (she spread her arms very very wide) "to this big!" (she brought her arms closer together).

"_It's Trans-Galactic Republic_" whispered Tali, before speaking so the Council could hear. "What Gaige means to say is the design could be fit into a vessel only 800 meters long, not much different than Systems Alliance dreadnaughts in total length instead of almost thirteen kilometers. All the desired features could be incorporated, and the flyaway cost would be a fraction of the projected three trillion credits per unit under the current Project Olympic."

Gaige twitched. Thirteen—an unlucky number. One reason the ship had been set to be 12,800m long—superstition. It didn't change any costs, so why not.

"So it is technically and monetarily feasible" replied Tevos. "That is all we need to know from you. We appreciate your time."

Aides guided the pair of engineers extraordinaire out of the Council chambers, where they passed Admirals Grayson and Nimitz headed in the opposite direction.

"Good luck" said Tali as she passed. "They are _not_ happy with the Trans-Galactic Republic and all this tech!"

"So I gathered" replied Grayson.

The Council sealed the room as the Admirals arrived. A third presence made itself known once the chamber completely locked itself.

"Well, if it isn't Mr. and Mrs. Giant Guns" growled Urdnot Wrex.

"Uhh, we're not married" backpedaled Nimitz quickly.

"Hah" barked the krogan.

Grayson leaned over as he could see the color draining from his elder colleague's face. "I've met him before. He's all bluster—loves to test the reaction he can get out of people. Don't fall for it! He's actually not that unreasonable, for his species."

Expecting a royal dress-down, the Admirals found themselves greeted jovially.

"Grayson. It is good to see you again." Tevos offered her hand—it was a human gesture of trust to grasp the hand of another, squeeze, and make an up-down motion with hands entwined.

"Who are you?" demanded Allison Nimitz of Wrex. "I was asked to smuggle you to this station—why?"

"That ship of yours was pretty impressive" came the gravelly reply. Totally hidden from visual and sensor scanning! Makes the _Normandy_ look like a bright light in the sky!"

"Good to hear some honesty" came the measured tones of the salarian Councilor Clethon. "Since we are currently absolved of the Open Records Act, we may proceed unhindered."

"I've always been honest, salarian. What do you want from me?" Wrex glared at his species' arch-nemesis, the creators of the hated genophage.

"We are about to discuss completely upending the existing power structure in the galaxy" replied Victus. Wrex liked Victus—progressive, intelligent, thoughtful. Qualities not always associated with career military turians (see: Xytler). Or krogans in general.

"If your brood-brother Wreav were in charge of Urdnot, we would not be here" added Grayson. "We would have sterilized your world and put the genophage on overdrive."

"Part of me wants to kill you" came the floor-vibrating response. "The other part of me appreciates your candor—Wreav is a moron. Any chance you could make him go away?" A harsh barking laugh followed.

"We stand on the edge of a knife" said Tevos, a little more loudly. "The asari have always been known for at least attempting to take a long view of a situation since it is more than likely we'll be around a thousand years later."

"At the moment" continued Clethon, "we are having to make guesses that made the genophage look like simple addition. The arrival of the Trans-Galactic Republic has ushered in changes no one ever thought were possible—the curing of the genophage, the possibility of greater military balance replacing the Treaty of Farixen, an influx of humans no different than those of Earth, and travel between galaxies."

"So, you were holding out on me." Wrex's face conveyed slight disappointment that his otherwise-forthcoming Trans-Galactic Republic friend hadn't told him of something at that level of importance.

Allison Nimitz threw up her hands. "We only figured this out a few months ago! We were waiting for the right moment!"

"You, Nimitz—your species has never seen thousands of stillborns. Never seen what it does to mothers who cannot have children no matter how hard they try. Never seen what happens to your species when it believes it is doomed. What would the right moment have been, huh? Another Rachni War? More Reapers?"

"Wrex, please!" pleaded Clethon.

"The right moment is now" interjected Tevos. "Now, to remove the stain of fascist human supremacy from the Council, now, to rebalance the galaxy's militaries, now, to give the krogan a new dawn."

"This could never be discussed in any place others might hear of it until it is done" intoned Victus. "That is why this room is sealed, that is why you were snuck here aboard a Trans-Galactic Republic black-ops ship."

"The last time a group got together in a dark room, my species ended up sterilized. At least this time we're in the room." Another laugh. "What about the quarians?"

The three standing Councilors had to mask various expressions of surprise and shock. They all knew Wrex was much less selfish, boneheaded, and shortsighted than most krogan, but specifically caring about the pariahs of the galaxy had to be some kind of new record. Had Samantha Shepard really rubbed off that much on him?

Victus spoke. "From what we know, Samantha Shepard died an honorable death on Pandora fighting the Reapers" (Grayson and Nimitz had to fight the urge to high-five—Trans-Galactic Republic counterintelligence had pulled an epic number on everyone else; a tech edge really helped here) "and she would undoubtedly want to be present for such a momentous occasion. The fact that you inquire about the quarians, despised as they are, among other actions, is what convinced this Council that you are to the krogan what Shepard was to humanity: a single point of light for others to follow."

Wrex chuckled. "I'd just rather our species not go down as big, scary dogmatic monsters. Did you know Tuchanka used to have cities, and architecture not shaped by cannon blasts?"

"The humans call such periods of revival a 'renaissance.' We believe you can lead the krogan to such a period."

"You're going to make me cry, asari."

"You'd best listen to the rest of the plan, Wrex" deadpanned Grayson. "It involves more explosions and ships—more your speed."

"Many of the following events must occur nearly simultaneously for this to have even a sliver of a chance of succeeding" continued Clethon. "The Systems Alliance Parliament is prepared to back the ascension of Adam Grayson to human Councilor, since there is no actual formal procedure for the selection of a human representative on the Council as the last appointment was effectively chosen by Samantha Shepard."

"Why Grayson?" asked Nimitz. "Why not someone from your own galaxy?"

"That's the next part of the plan" answered Victus. "In exchange for a seat on the government of this galaxy, the Trans-Galactic Republic will make good on its full technological sharing offer. We will then begin construction on a new class of peacekeeping starships to be crewed exclusively by multi-species groups."

"Not to sound greedy, but…"

"Yes, Wrex, the genophage cure will be distributed. However, the krogan will also be required to give up their astronomical birth rates. Genetics brought the genopage—they can also cure it, and simultaneously remove the problem of krogan overpopulation. Unless you'd like to convert all your colonies to death worlds" finished Victus.

_Did that turian pyjack just try to make a joke? _

"The only missing piece remains the quarian-geth issue. This will be especially difficult, given that several key quarian figures are being held prisoner by the Trans-Galactic Republic for various violations of laws said figures were duty-bound to follow during the Reaper War" concluded Tevos.

"Ordinarily, we would, ahem, send a special envoy to deal with the situation…"

The room became more somber. All three Councilors knew who they would like to have handle this problem. As much as their relationship with Samantha Shepard had been adversarial, the three recognized a top-notch operative when they saw one. Her being dead (as far as they knew) precluded involvement, however.

"We have information relevant to this issue!" blurted out Allison Nimitz.

An immediate storm followed her words as all three Councilors spoke over each other. "Have the quarians attacked the geth?" (Victus), "Has the balance of power changed?" (Clethon), "Have you established bilateral talks?" (Tevos).

"Shepard is alive."

Cue another talk-fest. "Why didn't you tell us?" "So much for open information sharing." "Is she still insane?"

"We didn't tell you because we weren't sure we could save her" responded an exasperated Grayson. "You are all aware of the 'stasis' ability possessed by asari biotics. Now, imagine a non-biotic, portable version that stays on as long as you feed it energy. We used just such a unit to stabilize her, chopped her bottom half off, and put her back together with a hefty dose of cybernetics."

Tevos spoke, very quietly. "Is Samantha Shepard worth saving?"

Wrex's glare could have melted armor. His mouth moved, but apparently he thought better of whatever crossed his mind and remained silent.

"That is a completely fair question" replied Allison Nimitz. "That said, as you didn't know she was alive, you also don't know that whatever drove her to the depths of despair has been removed from her psyche. She will be clear to resume Spectre operations, once she wakes up."

"And when can we have our Spectre extraordinaire back?" Clethon. Both admirals expressed surprise a non-human would use human language this way. Perhaps it was a translation glitch.

"The doctors tending to her estimate two to four months, but it could be longer."

"The sooner the Commander is back on her feet, the better" said Tevos. "Her rapport with the quarian Tali'Zorah vas Normandy and the geth construct Legion may be of assistance in dealing with the Rannoch issue. I would be willing to surmise no one else could approach the situation with as great a chance of success as her."

Grayson looked at Tevos. "Is there an actively hostile situation on Rannoch right now?"

"No, there is not. It could occur, however."

"Then why don't we start with multi-species starships?" interjected Wrex. He might not be a Councilor or admiral, but as leader of essentially all krogan, his words carried weight. "If a human commander can work with a turian, krogan, asari, drell, salarian, and several other humans all as equals, I see no reason why we can't push this forward."

"We are reaching the point where, as the humans say, our secrets have secrets. Which themselves have sub-secrets. The digital construction technology imported from Gamma-Three will have to be re-tooled for the Trans-Galactic Republic-infused Project Olympic" concluded Victus.

The remainder of the meeting consisted of discussing logistics for what would turn out to be the biggest overhaul of galactic government since the Citadel Council. And the largest change in the balance of power since the genophage was deployed against krogan warlords. What was being attempted ended up being nothing short of an overnight makeover. Whether it would be good or bad depended entirely on execution.


	9. Poke and Prod

A/N: Can I make a Friday reference, or is that going to get me instabanned? 'Cause technically it's Friday, and I'm publishing this chapter on a Friday instead of a Saturday.

**Chapter 9 – Poke and Prod**

Mordin Solis continued his ever-vigilant watch over the comatose Samantha Shepard. Having essentially taken over the entire project (though Miranda Lawson came onboard as a consultant), he ran identical tests hundreds of times per day. Any variations in results greater than 0.0001% caused him to engage in a flurry of activity in attempts nail down the source—and correct it if necessary.

It was simpler for the Council to visit in person now that Adam Grayson was (secretly) a member than it would have been previously—fewer issues of "putting the Council on a starship with strangers." Satisfied Shepard both still lived and remained under the care of the best physicians in the galaxy, the Council derived great satisfaction that so far, the master plan was working.

[…]

The last thing Garrus remembered was being herded onto a spaceship. Now, groggy, he groped his way around what seemed to be a small cell.

_Damn_.

He'd been stripped of his heavy turian armor and now wore, as best he could, what seemed to be hastily re-cut human clothes.

_Figures_. _Anthropocentric dickbags._

He scanned his new living space—no windows, no door that he could see. Knowing all the crazy technology around since the arrival of the Pandorans and Trans-Galactic Republic, the door for his cell probably created itself when necessary, then disappeared afterward. As if to confirm his thoughts, a door appeared with a guard motioning for him to follow.

As he stepped through the doorway, the guard slowed him down and held his wrists behind him. Cuffs appeared, and the guard let go of his hands.

"Have fun!" said the guard in a half-mocking, half-sarcastically chipper voice as Garrus was shoved into yet another room.

"Ah, the birdface."

_FUCK._

His arms were attached to a heavy chair by the restraints on them. His chair sat in front of a metal table. Classic interrogation—one really bright light, the questioner's face framed in shadow. Not that he didn't already know who he was dealing with.

"So."

Jackie Jakobs sat on the table. On his side of the table. Swinging her legs and acting for all the world as if they were two friends having a chat over alcoholic beverages.

She leaned toward him.

That was one thing he didn't understand about human females. Apparently, to human males, the fleshy bits on the chest were considered attractive, so many human women wore garments that showed off this part of their anatomy. Confusingly, one was not permitted to simply show everything in public, only parts. Like what he found himself staring at now.

Turians attracted mates based on other characteristics, such as reach and flexibility. Or success in the Hierarchy's citizenship tiers.

"If you are trying to arouse me, it won't work" he responded.

"Oh, but I enjoy it" came the reply. "Since we're at my house, we're going to follow my rules."

She was also using that tone of voice which had agitated Axton. Again, this did not create any sexual response in a turian, but she kept it up anyway.

"We are going to have a little chat about your friend Miss Tannis" she continued, now straddling him.

"If you hurt her…"

"You'll what?" she crooned.

"See you dead" Garrus responded, with the same conviction as he'd possessed about Sidonis until Shepard had talked him out of ending the traitor's life.

"I would never _dream_ of hurting her" replied Jackie, sounding insulted and pouty at the thought. "I just need to know what she knows."

Knowing it to be foolish, but seeing an opportunity, Garrus closed his mandibles around whatever he could reach. Hard.

A hand across the face, and he stared blankly at his attempted tormenter.

"You alien bastard" she hissed. "Your entire species will suffer for this!" Her hand throbbed, reddened by contact with the hard, metallic-infused plates of turian skin.

"You don't know turians very well, do you?"

Suddenly, positions had reversed. He was enjoying himself—her, not so much.

"Fuck you" she spat.

Knowing the meaning of human slang, Garrus couldn't let the opportunity to zing this bitch pass by. Keeping a completely straight face and neutral tone, he let it fly.

"I'm sure you want to. You're not my type. Too…_squishy_."

She stormed out.

Thankfully for Jackie's pride, no video had been taken of the abortive attempt to extract information from the turian, Garrus Vakarian. Really, the entire set of interrogations had gotten worse and worse.

First, Patricia Tannis had utterly ruined any attempt to get her to talk. When faced with torture, she kept up a running commentary on proper technique, tool sterilization, pain points, and how effective she thought each fresh method was. Then, when faced with the "Jackie Special" ("I can make any woman a lesbian when I'm in the room") she became overly enthusiastic about it. Which again ruined it.

Maya responded differently. By responded, it would be best to say she was completely unflappable. Some kind of mental conditioning, Jackie guessed. The Siren shut out the torture and utterly ignored the seduction. In fact, she almost looked _bored_ as Jackie straddled her, having laid the Siren flat on her back. Taking this as an insult, the Jakobs heir again stomped out of the room.

Then came her abortive round with the turian.

Axton proved most interesting. He'd already demonstrated that he was completely susceptible to Jackie's wiles and charm. So she decided to press that advantage. However, she'd forgotten about his Dahl commando training—some of the roughest in the galaxy, with a focus on subversive tactics. At first, he seemed to be clay in her skilled hands—the male guards outside simply rolled their eyes at the loud moans emanating from the interrogation room. As she began to undress, she thought she saw a flash of cognizance in his eyes—no, she must have imagined it. Her hand moved to remove his fatigues. She licked her lips in anticipation.

In one fluid motion, he pulled her belt off, whipped it across her face so hard the guards jumped, and stood up.

"Having fun? You forgot something" he taunted, holding up his wrists, around which the restraints were disengaged. "You liked my hands between your legs, but they're free to do other things as well."

CRACK.

Down she went. "Not all men think with their dicks" he spat, delivering a swift kick to her prone form. He smiled savagely as he heard a rib (or several) crack.

He turned for the door. The guards were too busy laughing and guessing what vicious sadomasochism Jackie must be forcing on her prisoner to realize the person opening the door was in fact that "prisoner."

CRACK.

The two guards' heads slammed together. _Not quite Brick_ he thought, _but close enough_.

Axton could hear faint screaming coming from somewhere down the hall. Grabbing a gun (Jakobs, of course) off one unconscious guard, he headed in the direction of the sound. It didn't take him long to find the source.

A video screen played something he couldn't see from outside the cell. Trapped in a chair that kept her facing forward was Athena. Crying, bawling, yelling, whatever was on that screen must really be disturbing to her. Realizing he had no way to open the locked cell, he took the risk of heading back the way he came.

The guards and spoiled Jakobs heiress were all unconscious.

_I really have to tell Brick about this. He is no longer king of punching_.

"Ew" he muttered as he reached down Jackie's half-undone top to pull out her keycard.

"Let's see if this works."

He slapped one guard's toned ass on his way out.

The card unlocked Athena's cell without issue. It also released her from…

Axton stared transfixed at the video. A hand slammed into a man's chest and ripped out his heart. Which was then shoved into his mouth as he died. Soldiers impaled on their own ribs. Guts everywhere. Corpses hit by so many bullets they were unrecognizable.

He emptied all but one shot from his stolen revolver's magazine into the screen.

"Damn it" muttered a guard. The screen had also been a hidden video camera. Thus, no more access to a feed of that cell—though at least they knew where the prison-break was occurring.

Axton didn't know how long he sat, just holding a completely broken, sobbing Athena. At some point, her body could produce no more tears, leaving her dry-heaving into his chest. Clutched in one hand, the necklace she'd always worn. The tiny disk had been removed—that was what kept her awake at night. She'd apparently watched one minute of it before stopping and vowing to never watch any more. The soulless Jackie Jakobs had forced her to watch it on a loop.

At some point, guards arrived and dragged the two of them apart. Axton couldn't find any words. Athena said nothing, though her eyes told him quite a bit as she was taken away. He swore she mouthed something at him as she passed out of sight.

_Please, end it._

He couldn't bring himself to pull the trigger. The gun was yanked from his hand.

[…]

Now that Project Olympic actually had a chance to succeed, the engineering design deck bustled with hundreds of personnel going about various tasks. Instead of working on theories, teams turned to implementation. Not "How might we…" but "How will we…"

Fleet Admiral Allison Nimitz was not exaggerating. With a hypermatter annihilation reactor, the design shrank easily from 12,800m down to 797m. With room for three fighter squadrons, a generous helping of secondary weapons, and a souped-up GARDIAN-type point-defense system. One sticky situation remained—Gaige's "elemental property" mass-accelerators vs. Tali's "inertial confinement fusion" mass-accelerators.

The former would possess lower energy demands, but the latter were so epically destructive (over short ranges) that the Council itself almost intervened. On a technicality, they avoided designation as Weapons of Mass Destruction, allowing development to continue. Regardless of which would make it to the final design, neither came close to being ready for prime-time just yet. At least one or two months more would be required.

Informally, the engineering staff split into "enGaige" and "Team Tali"; casual bets on the advancement of each design involving anything from provisioning of morning donuts to shaving of heads (or other, more permanent modifications) came down weekly. One week, Team Tali pulled ahead in a spectacular fashion—electrically charged cannons had gone literally off the rails, giving everyone present (most of enGaige) rather amusing hairdos. The charge was so great some were unable to have normal hair for _days_. Another, less laughable incident occurred when new nanoBeamz inertial confinement lasers ended up misaligned. An entire turret melted as a result.

Through the explosions, melted parts, burns, cuts, concussions, and near-death-experiences SETTLE's personnel developed a rapport transcending age, species, gender, and even galactic affiliation. Unlike the last "team" effort, no vengeful bloodlust drove the process—no blind desire to destroy everything in sight motivated anyone.

It seemed to be true, as Elizabeth Booker had written, "Crafted in anger / Bastard children of blind hate / Will destroy us all."

[...]

_Durius, Melius, Velocius, Fortior._

In pursuit of that goal, Mordin Solis's team worked round-the-clock. Basic neurological tests finally reached a level that satisfied the motor-mouthed salarian. Moving to intermediate tests, the only mistake of the project would thus occur. In an attempt to signal Shepard's right leg (artificially—her brain remained in a coma), no "power level" control was given. This small oversight caused the cybernetic leg, strong enough to slam through durasteel armor plate, to kick out full-strength. The whipsaw motion damaged both artificial muscle fibers and the knee joint, requiring some reconstruction of the reconstruction.

"Understand limitations" insisted the doctor. "Avoid problems in future" he lectured. Quaking in fear, those responsible thought themselves good as gone, but the "angel of Omega" kept them on.

Narrating into his log, Solis remained pleased with the pace of progress, though it was slower than initially hoped.

"Projecting full consciousness possible eight months after initial surgery. Damage to right leg caused by inattentiveness repaired. Kept staffers responsible on project. Good people. Tired. Made mistakes. Only human."

He began conducting prep-work to begin full neural processing. Simulations of mental functions would be run on Shepard's brain, and if any issues arose flash-cloned version of the brain would be created to iron out problems. It was akin to testing a computer's hardware while the operating system remained in a state of hibernation.

Eventually, micro-waking would bring Shepard's mind out of limbo for extremely short periods of time, searching for any instabilities. The periods would be extended until the team became certain she could be woken full-time.

[...]

What remained of Sanctuary almost wasn't worth rebuilding. "Mad" Moxxi's eyes brimmed with tears as she looked over her bar—or what was left of it. She'd lost her children, most of her former husbands, and a few dear friends. Some time ago, a cryptic communication came through suggesting a "benefactor" would be willing to assist with rebuilding of Sanctuary at the site of Shepard's old base. Initially, she figured it was Marcus trying to pry his way back into her pants, but he vehemently denied being the origin. The two remained business partners, mainly because "He has the money, I have the pizazz. And nicer tits."

As the pair surveyed the site of their former home, Moxxi's communicator buzzed again. The mysterious voice emanated from it, indicating benefactor and client would finally meet.

Noise from an incoming craft caught Moxxi's attention. Some kind of gunship, painted in garish yellow, black, and white colors. Could it be? But then, the weapons hanging from its wings looked like anything but Torgue—glowy, colorful, dancing lights everywhere. The trademark of elemental munitions—and Maliwan. She'd heard of the "MALITOR ALLIANCE" but never really believed it.

IT PLEASES ME THAT YOU ARE ALIVE.

The towering man, whose pecs had pecs, bounded from the gunship.

"Why all the secrecy?" wondered Moxxi. "It's not like there are any Harvesters left…"

YES, THE HARVESTERS HAVE BEEN EXPLODED. JVLN HAS NOT. THEY MUST BE HIT SO HARD THEIR F*CKING GRANDMAS EXPLODE.

"They're still working together?"

AM I FOND OF EXPLOSIONS?

It seemed Torgue always related everything to explosions somehow. It didn't bother Marcus—after all, explosive-primed munitions tended to sell rather well, especially when it became apparent they worked wonders on some forms of Harvester wildlife.

"Why the Maliwan arms?" demanded the confused arms dealer. That Torgue loved explosions was not news. That he had any use for elements _other_ than explosions was.

THE MALITOR ALLIANCE CAME FROM HAVING THE SAME GOAL. EXPLOSIONS. FIRE, ELECTRICITY, ACID… REGULAR EXPLOSIONS BEST OF COURSE.

"So how exactly are you proposing we rebuild Sanctuary?"

MOXXI, YOUR QUESTION IS APPRECIATED. MALITOR WILL FUND A TOURIST ATTRACTION HERE. IT WILL BE TOTALLY F*CKING AWESOME.

"Two guesses as to whether this involves explosions" sighed Marcus. "First guess is free…"

YOU ARE CORRECT, MISTER KINKAID. THE TOURISM WILL BE FROM PEOPLE WHO WANT TO SEE EXPLOSIONS.

"Hmm…" Moxxi could guess (and fantasize) but she highly doubted…

WE WILL BUILD A BADASS ARENA OF BADASSITUDE THAT WILL MAKE THE UNDERDOME AN UNDERWHELMING PARK FOR P*SSIES.

"Eeeeee! Gooooo! GOOOOOO! KILLING SPREE!" Moxxi (and specific parts of her) nearly bounced off Pandora in excitement.

MISS MOXXI, WILL YOU DO THE HONOR OF HOSTING THE BADASS ARENA OF BADASSITUDE?

Torgue (all almost two meters of him) knelt before a surprised Moxxi, offering a box a bit too large for a ring. It opened to reveal a key, made of pure Eridum.

THIS IS THE KEY TO MY ARENA. AND POSSIBLY OTHER THINGS.

"Let's get started, shall we?" said Marcus, some disappointment showing in his voice (as he had once been the lucky man who came home to Moxxi warming his bed).

INDEED WE SHALL GET STARTED. FIRST, THIS F*CKING EYESORE NEEDS TO GO. GET INTO THE GUNSHIP.

[…]

When Jackie threatened her prisoners with death-by-lack-of-New-U, she purposefully neglected to mention that the system remained available for a select few. Such as herself.

After she regained consciousness, she found out what had happened. Thankfully, her guards took care of the problem, re-securing the loose prisoners. Competent guards were a luxury many contemporaries either could not afford or didn't bother with—but paying the extra (or "paying" as she occasionally did for exceptional service) tended to be worth it. Due to Garrus biting her (and not in a fun way, sadly) combined with Axton's belt-whipping/kicking, she needed a quick healing. Using her Judge pistol, she respawned herself.

Each prisoner remained in solitary confinement now. First, she stopped by Axton's cell. Putting on a pouty, hurt expression, she pressed her face against the barred window on his door, only to have to yank herself back lest she be punched.

"You know what, you are no fun. I'd let you out if you promised to put that aggression _into_ me…" She batted her eyes suggestively only to get a double middle-finger in return.

Next up, Garrus. "I know you can't get enough of me, so I fixed myself up for you" she hissed, walking toward his cell door with her top open. Garrus might well have been staring at blank space for all the reaction he gave, however.

She was ready to up the teasing, until she received a page. Analysis of cell footage from Athena had possibly produced something of value. She zipped up, whispered "Later, sexy" and headed to the upper levels.

On her way up, she cursed Maya. She hated to admit it, but that Siren was _hot_. And yet, she was unable to experience any enjoyment or pleasure from tormenting the woman.

The arrival of her elevator at its destination interrupted her thoughts.

"Ma'am." Salute.

"Through all the endless screams and meaningless babble, we deduced a phrase that she kept repeating."

A cleaned-up, though still low-quality audio clip played. "Tannis!" shrieked Athena, squeezing her eyes shut only to open them again as electricity surged into her as punishment. "Control the first! The first! Control the first!"

From seized records, it was determined that the phrase did have meaning. That phrase also matched the inscriptions on Judge. If only Athena hadn't been so _traumatized_, thought Jackie, she would have rewarded that woman with such a night…

Of course, it never crossed Jackie's mind that she had in fact been the _source_ of the trauma. But that was what being entitled, spoiled, and power-mad did to a person.

Exploration teams reported finding traces of an expedition which ventured below the Prime Vault, or "Altar" as Patricia Tannis called it. Bits of dextro food had been found at some suspected campsites, so she deduced Garrus might have been involved. Jackie Jakobs might have been sex-crazed, vicious, seductive, and ruthless, but she was not stupid. It helped many opponents assumed her to be a brainless bimbo who got by on looks after she tried to seduce them, only to find out there was more to her than breasts. If the turian had been digging (presumably with these others, especially the Tannis woman) there must be something valuable around.

A huge piece of what looked like Eridium had been discovered in Axton's pack, so it now stood under the analysis of an army of Jakobs specialists.

Coincidentally, the very machinery Patricia Tannis suggested the quartet steal when the mission began happened to belong to Jakobs. Using Eridium crystals to focus an excavated Eridian weapon, later Trans-Galactic Republic analysis would compare it to superlasers, the device could easily punch through to the planet's core given enough time. Jackie ordered it to be brought to the pole, though that would not be a quick process. Instead of crawling back and forth like peons, she would simply drill her way in.

_Heh, drill_. _Drill hard. Drill fast…_

She forced herself to focus. There would be time for self-exploration later. It was essential to make sure neither Bart nor Buckshot (unlikely) interfered—if anyone saw her moving the Drakken Laser Drill, Overcharged (DLDO) they might team up on her.

_Why must everything be an innuendo to me?_ _My own family! Ew, Jackie, ew!_

A devious plan formed in her head. Overly-complicated, likely. Expensive, yes. Time-consuming, definitely. But if it worked, there wouldn't be any problems moving the giant DLDO.


	10. Taking Flight

**Chapter 10 – Taking Flight**

In a few short months, Project Olympic transformed from a sinking ship to a quantum leap forward in engineering.

"Why not both?" asked Gaige to Tali when Team Tali had a particularly good week. So, accepting the challenge, hundreds of engineers pored over possible schematics for multiple-munition-capable turrets. Four months in total had passed; a hull already began taking shape in one of three bays contained aboard the installation used for the project. In an interesting coincidence unknown to the Olympic engineers, if both projects stuck to their timetables, the first ship would be ready just about the time Samantha Shepard would be waking up.

After a particularly grueling day of debating possible names for the ship class, the committee stood up to leave.

"What about 'Maxthon?'" piped up a junior engineer.

"Max-what?" replied another.

"Maximum Marathon—Maxthon" said the first.

"Have you noticed things around here tend to get solved at the last minute, in the most random way possible?" asked Tali to Gaige. Gaige concurred.

"As long as I get to build stuff, it's cool. That bitch Marcy would give her miserable life to see some of this—oh wait, she's already dead!" She grinned as if her birthday was coming twice over, and early at the same time.

Tali kept her mouth shut. The teen could be rather _disturbing_ at times. Then again, the phrase "eccentric genius" existed for a reason. Also "mad scientist…"

Olympic wasn't the only endeavor in Citadel space succeeding after some false starts. The Council's secret plan, internally dubbed "First Flight," got off to a rocky start when not-publically-acknowledging-him-as-Councilor Grayson demanded (on Council authority) the transfer of "any and all fertile krogan females from salarian possession."

The Systems Alliance Parliament conducted an extensive, slow, and exhaustive "search" for a new Councilor, putting on an extravagant "varren-and-hamster show" for the media. The "varren" were candidates the media quickly dug up dirt on—leading to "exposés" that made them undesirable candidates to the public. The "hamsters" were too "cuddly and cute" for the media to do much on, but the joke ended up being on reporters as the Parliament would take one away while simultaneously dropping another (which was fawned over just the same). The legitimate debate over whether humanity should elect its Councilor or leave that up to the Parliament played out too—but without any way to create a law that did not exist for a procedure never before attempted, the "Elect Our Councilor" faction couldn't gain significant footing.

To cover for Grayson's mistake, the salarian Councilor pinned the blame on "diplomatic misunderstandings" which conveniently implicated Urdnot Wreav, using among other things a hanar with camera implants to obtain evidence. Wreav's attempts to obtain weapons of mass destruction (really, a new quad) using clan money quickly resulted in his demotion and subsequent ostracization.

When asked if he knew anything about the situation, Urdnot Wrex remarked "That moron couldn't fix a combustion manifold on a tomkah. What do you expect?"

Whether it was cosmic alignment or simply good fortune, the geth and quarians avoided shooting at each other (too much). The Trans-Galactic Republic only had to play referee once—something about a shipload of elcor being unloaded into the hanger of a damaged geth dreadnaught as part of a Pilgrimage-gone-crazy.

Three _Maxthon_-class heavy cruisers were authorized. Named _Maxthon_ (obviously), _Revenant Phoenix_, and _Elizabeth Booker_ (take that, Miss Luddite-and-Down-on-Tech) the vessels would be completed mainly through digistruction. This meant a launch only a few months after construction/digistruction began.

That technology still remained the crown jewel of the Council's COSMIC TOP SECRET programs. Digistructing an entire ship in one pass was not possible—exponentially more powerful computers would be needed to do that—so parts had to be built and assembled. Even the Trans-Galactic Republic lacked the processing firepower necessary, and besides "We don't even know what to optimize for, since this tech makes zero sense to us. It's like using a hyperdrive without knowing how it works."

Much to Commander Bailey's displeasure, the offhand comment from a CSI ended up being correct regarding Udina's death—no evidence, no leads, no case. "This case is so cold absolute zero is warmer!" said the lead prosecutor.

Diana Allers penned an opinion piece subtly accusing the turian prosecutor of not putting in enough effort, only to be humiliated the next week when "C-Sec: Absolute Zero" dedicated an entire episode to detailing how unsolvable the case seemed to be.

[...]

"Yes, my lady?"

"Acolyte Harper. You are to assemble a strike force and attack the facility building the Citadel Navy's new heavy cruisers. Information regarding the whereabouts of this facility will be relayed to you en route. You are not to destroy the cruisers even if you would otherwise be able to. Give them an easy victory, but make them think they worked for it."

"It will be done, my lady."

The blonde/black haired, red-eyed woman delivered orders at all hours. Kai Leng began training himself in sleep-reduction techniques lest The Lady call at odd times. She/he/it seemed to have an uncanny ability to ring his communicator when he was relieving himself, eating, or bathing.

Like the former Illusive Man (The Lady required he revert to using his given name), Leng was also given a feint-attack assignment. He and a team of Special Infiltration Tactics Heavies (SITH) were to board T'Soni Base I. Not much research occurred there at the moment—in fact, the chamber where the asari was "brutally murdered" remained cordoned off as an eternal monument—the point was to strike a psychological blow while simultaneously puffing up the egos of the Trans-Galactic Republic/Citadel Council. The attack would do great damage, but the defenders would "heroically" drive them off after a lengthy battle.

With a force of _Mephisto_-class assault shuttles, Daimon Leng and his SITH Nephilim would begin a glorious battle against the hated Trans-Galactic Republic. His attack existed to make the outsiders think twice about letting their guard down, followed by the former Illusive Man's attack. Being more substantial but still planned to fail, the Trans-Galactic Republic should then believe it had "dealt" with the threat.

As per The Lady's orders, Cerberus faded somewhat into the background until called upon. It spent much of its idle time collecting more resources—the galaxy's politicians had pretty much all coalesced into firm pro- or anti-Cerberus factions with few persuadables. Shoring up the base and buffing up reserve resources became a top priority.

At first, Harper couldn't understand how his few ships (allocation was of forces was _also_ dictated by The Lady—he never micromanaged this much…OW!) were supposed to damage a heavily-defended facility. Until Lady Finger Venera Sola arrived, anyway.

He was vaguely aware that things tended to fall into place more easily, make more sense, whenever Venera wanted something. Sometimes, he would end up not recalling vast swaths of time—which tended to correlate with the Lady Finger's presence. However, he knew better than to question it, though he did wonder what he might have done during those times, especially seeing as she always had the same nasty grin on her face when he "returned" to himself, as if she knew something…

Similar to the Citadel Council's experience with the Trans-Galactic Republic, The Lady's organization brought many types of advanced technology with it and handed most out freely to its operatives. It was suspected there were plans to do something significant regarding lifting of Trans-Galactic Republic technology, though only The Lady and high-up operatives knew exactly what that would be.

Given a force of _Tormenting Swarm_-class missile cruisers, Harper drilled attack plan after attack plan. He had the distinct feeling of being a figurehead, though, since despite nearly perfect scores from Venera, he never had to issue too many orders. And some of the orders he _did_ issue were flat-out ignored by underlines—something that in Cerberus would lead to…ARGH! It seemed any negative thoughts about The Lady, Venera, or things related to them tripped something in his implant, doubling him over in pain. The stronger the negative thought, the worse the pain—though such shocks could be mitigated by immediately replacing the triggering thought with mental penance and glorification of The Lady.

_I wonder if this is what Reaper technology did?_

Cerberus had been experimenting with indoctrination and even attempts to control minor Reaper minions, but as with virtually everything at the time, it got tossed aside due to the arrival of the Trans-Galactic Republic. Samantha Shepard's destruction of the Collector Base set them back quite far. As the Illusive Man, he'd believed himself stronger than the turian Saren (who fell to indoctrination, though was able to break through one last time to commit a twistedly-heroic suicide prior to the battle against Sovereign). Given his—ow—_grateful participation_—in this venture, he imagined the Reapers must have exerted even more—_empowering influence_—over those in their service.

Though the Illusive Man loathed being anything other than the top of any totem pole, Jack Harper had come to accept his role as an Acolyte. He shared The Lady's fervor for the advancement of humanity—and no alien meddling appeared evident in the organization. It struck him as odd no name or symbol unified The Lady's forces—

_The Lady is us! We are The Lady! No further identification is required for those who serve._

Now there were voices in his head? And Venera wasn't even around.

[…]

Mordin Solis, dubbed "shock doc" by some due to his obsession over Shepard's nervous system, made steady progress toward the eventual goal of bringing back the Commander from the brink, _again_. She was the woman who just wouldn't die. Some fine-tuning ended up being necessary for the eventual flash-restore of her memories (as under stasis the integrity of her neural patterns had dipped below 50%, a level the body could not recover from), but again, the Citadel Council/Trans-Galactic Republic was on a roll. And no piddly medical challenges were going to stand in the way!

The next day, a problem with inertial confinement lasers caused one of the incomplete _Maxthon_'s turrets to blow itself free in a rather spectacular fashion.

In order to maintain the pace, resources poured into _Revenant Phoenix_ whose construction had not yet reached the point of working with the apparently-troublesome technology. It seemed plausible _Phoenix_ would actually launch first, though the class name would remain the same.

"You know, Tali" remarked Gaige, "for all the effort we've put into these big guns, they seem to have more kinks than…ahhhh…"

"It will work" insisted Tali. "We just need to be precise, work carefully, and double-check each milestone."

One of Shepard's old engineering staff, Gabby Daniels, had been caught in the explosion. A stint in a hyper-concentrated "bacta tank" had her good as new within days. Analysts were shocked by the apparent healing power of the fluid; Trans-Galactic Republic medics shrugged it had been used for millennia. It even worked across most species barriers.

While it could not cure the genetics-based genophage, wider applicability of bacta to Citadel species gave a new lease on life to the drell. Though semi-frequent treatments were required (as exposure to humidity still damaged the lungs), it made Kepral's Syndrome manageable rather than fatal. Its superiority to medi-gel caused consternation among some, but the primary backer of medi-gel graciously accepted that "We believe saving lives should take priority over credits." After these comments were published, the Sirta Foundation mysteriously found itself in possession of machines which produced (at significant energy cost and lower potency) a medi-gel/bacta hybrid, more compatible with existing infrastructure in the galaxy at large (since most clinics lacked the large full-immersion tanks used for bacta treatments). There were also blueprints to construct copies of the machines.

_Use it well_ said the note. While nobody would comment, the writing was Aurebesh, so it had to be someone from the Trans-Galactic Republic, since not even Kasumi Goto had yet managed to crack the security on Trans-Galactic Republic supply caches.

Those in the know wondered why this fluid had not been applied to Samantha Shepard.

"Remember how we didn't have nearly as many supplies as we should've when we first arrived?" said Grayson. "We didn't even have enough fuel at the time of the Commander's incapacitation. Never mind medical supplies! Furthermore, we had no idea whether bacta would work—it has only recently been certified not to cause allergic responses or other reactions in your species."

"You could have told us" replied Clethon.

"I suppose that is true" sighed Grayson. Sometimes, all the secrecy became tiring. First Flight still remained under wraps, though the time rapidly approached when the shroud would be pulled away. Hopefully, the unveiled product would be less twisted than the last time the Trans-Galactic Republic "watered the seeds" of less technologically advanced species.

"Given the potency of bacta" opined Emily Wong, "it's small wonder the galaxy the Trans-Galactic Republic originates from has become so deadly on the battlefield. When an eviscerating gut-shot or three severed limbs won't end a life, extreme measures while at war make a twisted kind of sense. If there's a spark of life left in you, bacta will keep you going!"

Grayson wryly noted this time, something much more organic and far less toxic seemed to have emerged from the introduction of Trans-Galactic Republic technology. Of course, the fact that it was a healing salve which promoted…well, metaphorical healing, was not lost on the population at large. With the release of bacta from secure storage under Trans-Galactic Republic control combined with exclusive Sirta Foundation production of medi-bac, less scrupulous elements began taking advantage of the situation—fake bacta became more of a plague than any actual disease in recent memory save the genophage. In response, Sirta quietly developed a simple testing kit—a small pill-size capsule which would change color depending on the presence (or not) of bacta. Green meant good to go with pure bacta, pink signaled genuine medi-bac, anything else indicated an imposter chemical. Of course, the cat and mouse game continued—fake test kits abounded. Sirta advised to buy "only from authorized representatives."

On lawless Omega, Mordin Solis pulled strings to supply a steady stream of these kits to his former protégé Daniel Abrams. Due to the nature of Omega, Abrams refused to actually offer full-immersion bacta services (as the clinic's security now hung by a thread due to offering even small amounts of bacta), but he or his assistants were more than willing to test the veracity of any alleged bacta brought by desperate and destitute individuals of many different species.

One notable exception to the "miracle fluid" came in the form of the krogan. Their rapid natural regeneration did not get along with bacta, leading to ugly tumors. "Not like we need it, anyway" laughed Wrex. Krogan males, eager to impress the few fertile females, had taken to even greater feats of insanity than usual, not knowing the all-fixing bacta could not save them. As he attended yet another mass funeral (in which the corpses had been covered to hide hideous growths caused by bacta), he vowed to spearhead an education campaign about the dangers of "incompatible medicine."

"Would a turian eat human food? NO. Stay away from bacta!"

Wrex grew impatient, but he understood why the genophage cure had been held back (it was to be released simultaneously with the formation of a balanced Citadel Navy and hoped-for quarian-geth peace).

"Hah!" he barked at the last item. If anyone could do it, Shepard could, but she wasn't here (yet).

[...]

Jackie Jakobs knew holding hostages then barking orders at Axton, Maya, and Garrus would not work (Athena being the hostage). To be honest, she'd gotten what she needed from them—so she let them go.

"T'was fun!" she said lightly, making kissy faces at Axton. This time, all five returned double single-digit salutes—even the turian. She might've kept Tannis, but figured drill first, then work from there.

She'd heard about the Trans-Galactic Republic's "total spectrum cloak" and suspected it might be more easily defeated than advertised. Believing at least one of her former prisoners might be involved with (or brought into) operations using the technology, she had quantum-entangled tracking devices covertly installed inside each prisoner. Powered by the body's heat, they could check in up to once an hour for several weeks (or fewer times over a longer period) before the drain would overwhelm both the battery and thermocouples. She didn't care what happened with the devices afterward—besides, they weren't noticeable.

Sure enough, the turian delivered without even knowing it. Due to the secrecy surrounding the krogan portion (i.e. genophage cure) of First Flight, the disappearance of a _Vorknkx_ didn't really draw any notice as the ships seldom checked in with any type of mission controller. Nor were their flight plans known to nearby control towers. Besides, in order to check in, the cloak had to be dropped (apparently, the Trans-Galactic Republic didn't have quantum entanglement tech—a shocker!) so a perverse incentive existed to _not_ check in unless absolutely required to do so.

She decided to let her "turian stud" go without even making him aware his ship had been stolen or that she was responsible—he might chase her down in a fit of passion if he knew, she snickered.

Upon return from a conference involving Wrex, the (most disagreeable) salarian dalatrass Linron, and Trans-Galactic Republic officials only to find the ship who brought him to Tuchanka gone, Garrus was informed he'd simply been shuffled to a different vessel now that "business" had been taken care of. Really, Trans-Galactic Republic Traffic Control (superseding the Council Demilitarization Enforcement Mission with dozens of Golan XXV Battle Platforms) wasn't surprised—_Vorknkx_ ships pulled "one way surprises" all the time.

As with all complicated plans, something was bound to go wrong. Though the Trans-Galactic Republic had mastered total-spectrum cloaking, it still was the case that a cloaking field could only hide a certain level of energy emissions. The _Vorknkx_ were low-emission ships by default—a giant overcharged Drakken Laser Drill (even switched off) not so much. The drill, normally capable of a relatively swift (for its size) 20km/hr travel could move at no more than 5km/hr without either overloading the cloak's emission-covering abilities or overdrawing its power source as energy required to cloak increased exponentially against energy to be hidden.

A 2000km trip would therefore take over two weeks, assuming a straight line, no slowdowns, and no breakdowns. That never happened of course, so she planned on not being able to "drill hard" for a month. What was worth having was worth waiting for.

[…]

THIS WILL BE F*CKNIG AWESOME.

Moxxi, Marcus, and Torgue Flexington held onto straps built into the ceiling of a _Varkid_ gunship. Once the craft gained sufficient altitude, a massive explosion nearly ruptured the eardrums of all present as the gunship's doors were swung open to permit a view (and in any case not very sound-deadening when closed).

IT IS SHAPED LIKE T. FOR TORGUE.

Between wincing at the noise with eyes squeezed shut and clamping hands over ears, the others could see that in fact, the explosion _was_ shaped like a T. How he managed that, they didn't know.

In the distance, a whole fleet of _Latissimus Maximus_ heavy lifters brought in digistruction machines and pre-fabricated parts.

BIGGER IS BETTER. THE BADASS ARENA OF BADASSITUDE WILL HAVE THREE LEVELS AND ROOM FOR THREE FIGHTS AT ONCE. OR ONE REALLY BADASS FIGHT.

A hologram shimmered into existence detailing a rotating platform that would permit an announcer (presumably Moxxi) to be moved between arenas for commentating purposes. An animation kicked in as the simulation zoomed out. The triangular shape of the arena seemed odd, until Torgue explained.

TORGUE STARTS WITH T AND SO DOES THREE. THREE SIDES, B*TCHES.

"Okay then" replied Marcus in the most bored and unimpressed voice imaginable. "What do I get?"

ONE ARENA WILL BE EXCLUSIVELY SUPPLIED BY MARCUS MUNITIONS.

"Just one?"

WHICH IS BIGGER, THE GUEST BEDROOM OR THE MASTER BEDROOM?

[...]

One of the few items which was held over from the now-crumbling United Defense Command was the Kinetic-Oriented Multiple Belligerent Training (KOMBT) School. Since it offered species-neutral instruction based solely on an individual combat abilities, it ended up being fairly popular among most species. Out of necessity, some of the most advanced _biotic_ classes were taught solely by asari (representing the largest fraction of high-end biotics, this was expected). That said, no one cared what you looked like otherwise.

Jack and Brick were the unofficial proprietors of the school—having come up with the idea during the Reaper War. Neither would admit it, but the prospect of sending their students into Xytler's meat grinder had given them potent second thoughts. So the downfall of the turian (now arrested and held, along with others, by the Trans-Galactic Republic) freed them to focus less on pure combat and more on developing total potential of each individual.

Ashley Williams had been accepted as an instructor for the more physical side of things. The students all griped about her, but just like most of their "complaints," it was mostly bluster. They were genuinely grateful for instructors who helped bring out their best, even if the training was exhausting, painful, and downright brutal.

"Those little brats have taken after you, Jack" she teased. "'Hardass Ash?' I like it!"

James Vega took on a special role. Since the students were younger (and thus ineligible for Interplanetary Combatives Training—or colloquially "N-series"), he acted as a kind of advisor for those who hoped to one day be admitted to ICT. As an N7 himself (after being encouraged by Shepard to accept entry into the program), he brought a unique perspective to his trainees, as well as being "the coolest." His students' words, not his own. This designation lead to an ever-escalating prank war between himself and Jack, culminating with Vega being tackled by Eezo, Jack's pet biotic varren. Who, to add insult, then ate James' eggs.

"Nobody's cooler than me" she smirked. "Who's my badass biotic? Who's my badass biotic?"

After licking the downed James repeatedly, smearing his face with his own stolen breakfast, Jack and Eezo took their leave of the dining area.

James never lived that one down. He dearly wished to be able to counter the proliferating vids taken with omnitools that spread over the KOMBT network with Samantha Shepard's "Reaper Problem," but given the Commander's current status as a revered war hero who made the ultimate sacrifice, he knew that would be quite undignified.


	11. Wake Me Up, Before You Go-Go

A/N: Bonus chapter!

**Chapter 11 – Wake Me Up, Before You Go-Go**

HUUUUUAAAA!

That was Samantha Shepard's first word in over eight months, if a guttural animalistic sound could be called a "word." After a touching reunion with her crew (many who literally dropped what they were doing to rush to her bedside), being told the Reapers had in fact been defeated, and that she had yet _another_ new ship, Sam learned her new foe came in the form of a chart. A physical therapy progress chart.

Once everyone had been shooed out of the room, Mordin Solis appeared.

"Shepard. Will need to run tests on legs, necessary to…"

She didn't let him finish before bounding out of bed.

"Unce! Unce! Unce! Unce! Uh-Unce! Unce! Unce! Unce!"

Shepard's beatboxing and hip-banging elicited only the smallest of changes in Mordin's face.

"I—OW!"

As she doubled over in pain, Sam realized her hips hurt. A lot. And her shoulder was still heavily maimed from an ill-advised excursion with a Widow rifle at the firing range.

"Unwise decision. Should have let me explain process. Things you don't know. Possibility of self-injury."

She grimaced as she sat back down on the side of her bed. "I noticed."

"Nearly died again. Used temporal stasis to stabilize."

"I think I remember…something…being crushed…" Sam squeezed her eyes shut as if this would help her remember. Also, to fight the pain now coursing through her that might have been related to the over-exuberant celebration.

"Correct. Pinned by Brick. Attempt to keep you out of final battle on Pandora. Used deactivated artillery shell originally intended to destroy base, commit suicide" (inhale) "clearly successful in removing you from fight."

Memories started flooding back. The insanity, the violence, the loss of a sense of purpose, the insanity, the catfights with Lilith, the insanity… Maybe she had also been severely depressed; Liara's death didn't help with any of the above.

"Developed two personalities. Unsure why. Depression not normally manifested in physical form" (he held up a datapad with a picture of the object found next to her).

"A giant…space raisin?"

"Unknown. Dangerous. Destroyed using engines of _Revenant Phoenix_. Neural scans show one personality. Mental instabilities likely dealt with."

_The fight. Lilith… Angel…_ It took all she had not to start crying. She felt as though for her to keep living, others kept having to sacrifice themselves. It made so little sense, but she _knew_ the strange battle against, was it her "other" self, really happened! It seemed Samantha Shepard, too, would have a chance to redeem herself. If she hadn't already broken something that would keep her in the hospital even longer.

She looked at her lame shoulder. More painful memories began to surface. She controlled herself. _Commander Shepard does not cry!_

"Shoulder still damaged. Can be fixed upon arrival at Citadel."

_I'm erasing any surveillance videos of this med bay from the past five minutes_. She grinned. Likely, if she didn't, it would be all over the extranet. "Commander Shepard Can't Dance, Round 279631."

"Okay Mordin, what do I need to do?"

"Minimize sudden movements. Legs far stronger than before. Must learn to use new strength."

"Stronger? What'd you do, pile on muscle fibers?"

A sharp inhale. "Replaced entire body from lower chest to feet."

"WHAT?" she exploded. She winced as her enthusiastic speaking had twisted her damaged shoulder. "Cerberus managed to rebuild it—you cut it all off and _replaced_ it?"

"Photographs available. Can show you." The salarian manipulated controls on a computer to bring up the images in question.

She looked. Her face, her torso… Where were…oh what…holy hell!

Immediately following: "Hurk…bluuuuuargh…"

"Take cup. And towel."

"Thanks Mordin. I can't imagine there was much left. I guess my armor helps more against planetary re-entry than crushing."

"Correct, Shepard. Information about procedure, resulting changes to anatomy. Net result: more difficult to kill than ever before."

He handed over a datapad, which she eagerly began to read the executive summary. "I like being hard to kill."

_Patient's lower torso and legs replaced by cybernetic technology borrowed from Combat Human Replica Droid Project. Integrated nano-batteries provide forty-eight (48) hours of combat-ready energy should organic sustenance be unavailable. Batteries may be recharged wirelessly or organically. Ensuring room for advanced filter modules meant not replacing or reconstructing reproductive system, though hormone/endocrine duties are handled by biofiber glands near the batteries…_

"Wait a minute. So I can't…ever…." Her face fell.

Mordin smiled as much as a salarian could. "Recommend reading rest of summary."

_Sexual function preserved, minus reproductive capabilities. All inputs processed by waste filtration systems._

"Inputs? Really?" She broke out into a wicked grin. "Seriously? That what you calling them now?"

"Will need to test all replaced systems. Instructions included on datapad."

"I'm a woman, Mordin, I know how to…"

"Additional information _not necessary_" interjected the salarian, probably louder than he intended. "Suspect you fully capable of conducting all necessary exercises. Still, will answer any questions."

"Well" drawled Sam, "since we've covered the _most important_ part, can I kick in doors now?"

"Affirmative, Shepard. Also capable of jumping at least ten meters vertically while standing still. Can run at speeds exceeding some land vehicles. For several hours. Metabolic rate consummately increased."

"_Nice._ So I can eat anything I want like biotics do, put my foot through armor plate, and still get it on."

"Will take time to reach maximum potential as demonstrated by first use of tech which" (inhale) "caused pain."

"More physical training. Nothing I haven't seen before. Besides, I'll need it for this damn shoulder."

"Must follow regime carefully. Failure to do so would be" (inhale) "risky."

The doctor pressed a small device against his patient's hip, which caused the device to beep.

"Torque and horsepower now artificially limited. Self-injury no longer possible."

Shepard climbed slowly to her feet. The fiery pain around her lower chest had begun to fade. She took a step. Then another. She tried to move faster, but her legs refused to obey, as if she were trying to run against a particularly resistant mass effect field exercise machine. Teeth gritted in concentration, to no avail.

"Legs computer controlled. Digital restraints relaxed as progress made with therapy. Learn to walk. Then run."

"Mordin, if you didn't just save my life I'd stew your liver and eat it. You've turned me into a grandma!" She shook her fist on her undamaged arm at him, a devilish grin undermining the meaning of her words.

"Shuttle will take you to your ship. Affinity for surviving the impossible intact, Shepard."

The salarian regretted not being able to add internal bacta dispensers, but by the time the Trans-Galactic Republic revealed that technology _and_ ensured it would not harm the denizens of Citadel space, no further modifications to Shepard would be possible without rearranging virtually everything.

Shepard found herself greeted by Anna Erickson once the rest of her crew/friends dispersed off to their own various tasks.

"Sorry to do this to you, but we need to get down to business right away." Anna consciously avoided looking at the other woman's deformed shoulder/arm.

"When has that not happened?" Sam imitated a computer voice. "'Commander Shepard, you've recently been dead. Please find a way to stop our colonists from being abducted.'"

"Some of us can just never catch a break" Anna agreed. "At least this time the only thing you'll need to shoot off is your mouth."

Her memories were slightly fuzzy. Mordin had said she'd need to have several follow-up imprintings to make sure her original memories were properly preserved. She vaguely remembered having a loud confrontation with…the quarians? Something about Tali and the geth. Whatever she'd done, it worked—Tali's late father did not see himself dishonored nor was Tali found guilty of committing treason.

_Wait, if I can't remember why that happened, where'd all the detail come from?_

"Who do I need to yell at now?" she asked.

Anna felt bad. The woman sounded…tired. Worn-out. Exhausted. Samantha Shepard cheated death twice now. Perhaps she would go down in history as a lesson in why living forever could be a _bad_ thing.

"Who do you think?"

Tali grimaced upon seeing what the Commander had done to herself—she'd heard the stories, but had the presence of mind to not press the issue. She acted as though she'd seen nothing. 

Neither had seen that Tali had not left. With carefully disseminated news that Commander Shepard was back on her feet, the elements of First Flight went into overdrive. Many more were briefed into the program, which as one would expect, drastically increased the chance of a leak. So the intent was to get things going so quickly that there wouldn't be time for leaks.

"Creator Tali'Zorah is correct. The divide between the Creators and geth remains."

Sam Shepard let out an audible sigh, before half-shouting. "Can _anything_ in this galaxy get sorted out without me sticking my hands in?"

"There are many items which have been positively resolved without your involvement, Shepard-Commander."

Another sigh. "I know, Legion, it's just, can't I ever have a day when no one asks me to do anything?"

"We were given information on plans to reintegrate the geth into Creator society" continued Legion. "A cession of hostile actions against the geth will serve as a significant factor in convincing the uncommitted geth consensus to support reunification. Shepard-Commander, your destruction of geth heretics will most likely enhance our ability to convince others as well."

"What about the combined geth-quarian ships used during the Reaper War?" queried Tali. "Does that cooperation mean anything?"

"The joint venture is one of the reasons the geth have not sought to destroy the Creators despite several of them posing a significant threat."

"Wait, wait, what'd I miss?" _Not this again…_

"Sam, during the Reaper War, two quarian admirals, shall we say, ran afoul of the Trans-Galactic Republic. They kind of locked them both up."

Shepard saw a bit of the scared girl off on her Pilgrimage poke through the otherwise-confident exterior Tali normally displayed.

"What happened?"

To her surprise, Legion re-entered the conversation. "Creator vessels attacked geth scouts. While we understand why the Creators would wish to keep military advancements gifted to them from outside forces hidden, we nevertheless sought to understand more about possible Creator threats."

"Gerrel is an idiot" spat Tali. "He shot first, when approaching geth ships had their weapons powered down."

Tali had to catch herself. "Here I am defending the geth—no matter what you say, Sam, this galaxy needs you. Working with Legion helped me to start overcoming the prejudices I've been taught…"

Her head drooped. She remembered the vicious verbal lashing Sam Shepard meted out to both herself and Legion when she'd threatened the geth for scanning her omnitool. The words burned her ears as if they were yesterday—"What the hell were you thinking? Are you trying to undermine this whole operation? You can either fight at my side or be crushed under my heel, but you _will not_ stand in my way."

"The worst part is that the Trans-Galactic Republic captain in charge of defending Rannoch had actually ordered all ships to cease fire and 'save it for the Reapers.' Gerrel ignored her order and got thrown in a Trans-Galactic Republic brig for it."

Shepard's face took on a thoughtful look. When she next spoke, it was slow, deliberate. "How does the Trans-Galactic Republic assert legal authority over people who neither serve in its armed forces nor are even its citizens?"

Tali had an answer ready. She'd been warned the Commander might not remember everything, and even if there wasn't another near-resurrection, memories of the tumultuous time could be fuzzy.

"After the Trans-Galactic Republic showed up, the Citadel Council signed a treaty called the Status of Forces Agreement. It gave the Trans-Galactic Republic authority over any and all military assets acting in defense of the galaxy at large."

"So the Council gave an extra-galactic entity authority over races that don't even have Citadel embassies? Am I the only one who thinks that doesn't make any sense?"

"Shepard-Commander, you are correct. Organic thought processes do not always follow a logical pattern."

"Really" continued Tali sheepishly, "it came down to the Trans-Galactic Republic being able to blow us all away by sneezing. Those with the most powerful ships make the rules."

"I hope they didn't say it that way" gasped Shepard.

"Oh no, the Council just decided it wasn't worth it to try to fight with someone who would both steamroller their fleets and possibly be useful against the Reapers. So when the Trans-Galactic Republic made the suggestion, they just went along with it."

Sam could sense Tali had more to say, but for some reason had difficulty speaking.

"There was another issue…" she began, before trailing off.

"Come on Tali, you can tell me."

"It's really embarrassing."

"I promise I won't tell the Trans-Galactic Republic if your admirals blew up one of their ships or something" laughed Sam. "I mean, what could possibly…"

"That's actually it" whispered the quarian. "Admiral Daro'Xen vas Moreh designed a virus meant to cripple geth systems, but it got into the hands of Cerberus and its allies. Remember the huge battleship Admiral Grayson commanded?"

"What about it? It got blasted into..."

Comprehension dawned on Sam Shepard's face. Her expression hardened. "The virus came from the quarians?" she yelled.

"Not directly" parried Tali. "Cerberus, at the time part of Sapiens' Shield, an even more anti-alien organization than it had been, infiltrated the Migrant Fleet. They stole anything they could. Including code left on unsecure servers…"

If burning shame produced heat, Tali's visor would have melted off. The best computer specialists in the galaxy had left dangerous code laying around for anyone to grab.

Confusion reigned. "Wait, I thought the Special Tasks Group couldn't even interface with Trans-Galactic Republic systems. They got caught trying to break in before they'd even figured out how to log on!"

"This code was designed to attack geth systems with adaptive operating processes" replied Legion. "Analysis of its structure suggests executing on outsider hardware actually increased its capabilities, though we are not yet sure why or how this occurred."

"So the virus that disabled _Revenant_ was a quarian design. Can't say I'm surprised."

"Not sure whether that's a compliment" said Tali. She lightly slapped the Commander's intact shoulder. "At any rate, Xen wasn't even supposed to be working on those viruses anymore—but she kept at it. Then it got stolen."

"I can't imagine" responded Shepard "that she'd just up and _give_ the code to Sapiens or Cerberus—them being so anti-alien and all. So what the hell could the Trans-Galactic Republic charge her with?"

"Negligence and defiance of orders" replied Tali.

"Her actions were not directly responsible for the result, but they significantly contributed" chimed in Legion. "We believe an appropriate analogy would be placing a weapon near dangerous individuals."

"So the Council wants me to yell at the geth and quarians until they stop shooting at each other, am I getting this right?"

"Why don't we go see your new ship?" suggested Tali. "Worry about that if you end up standing in front of the Council again. Should that happen, try to make sure we can make songs out of it later!"

"Laugh it up, Tali…"

Shepard's recovery took place a galaxy away from her new ship. This, combined with not wanting the galaxies at large to know Samantha Shepard lived quite yet led the Trans-Galactic Republic to drag the mostly-completed ship designated for Samantha's use from the SETTLE Center to Pandora's orbit, in which Shepard had been put mostly back together aboard RNS _Veritas_.

Some weapons would need to be fitted upon the commander's return. The ship carried only a token crew on her outbound flight, as well. That said, a key advance on _Maxthon_ ships came from their propulsion systems—exponentially faster than anything used by either Citadel navies or the Trans-Galactic Republic.

Traditional hyperdrive travel between galaxies could take weeks or months; an advanced hyper-zero drive could make the same journey in days. Transits measured in less than an hour might be possible with extreme modifications to the drive and ship, but such changes pushed operational parameters outside acceptable safety ranges.

Hyperdrives were somewhat affected by ship mass—the larger the ship, the slower the hyperdrive tended to be up to a point. Fighters and smaller ships carried 1.0-level drives. Larger vessels tended to carry Class 2.0 or slower units. Element Zero ("eezo") changed that relationship. _Careful_ application of eezo cores drastically improved the efficiency of most hyperdrives (as opposed to exploding the ship in question as happened to RNS _Regal River_—reducing mass to absolute zero, then firing up the hyperdrive intended to push the ship's unmodified mass was a very poor choice). This permitted Shepard and the skeleton crew loaded aboard _Revenant Phoenix_ to make a return journey in roughly six hours.

During those six hours, Shepard spent some time looking over her mostly empty ship. Several barbettes lacked the triple barreled Variable Munition Mass Drivers which would be installed upon return to the SETTLE Center. These weapons were a collaboration between Gaige's elemental charging and Tali's mini-fusion designs. The "shock" variant had rendered the Trans-Galactic Republic's "ion cannons" redundant in the design, saving mounting points which were used for extra GARDIAN defensive systems.

Speaking of GARDIAN and smaller ships, the _Maxthon-_class _Revenant Phoenix_ had a much better fighting chance against such foes than the single-purpose _Aspirations Toward Infinity_ (in addition to a much shorter class name). More often than not, the secondary armament of _Infinities_ ended up being shut down to allow greater power to be fed into the primary battery (which was no good against fighters).

_Maxthon_ ships carried fighters of their own—three squadrons. Composition varied depending on mission, but anything fitting into Trans-Galactic Republic Standard Volume for Embarked Vessels up to Level III would permit thirty-six vessels. Additionally, boarding actions were possible thanks to five _Thranta_-class assault shuttles. More maneuverable than but slightly less tough than assault transports, assault shuttles needed less protection from fighters.

The _Maxthon_ vessels seemed to be the Holy Grail of military construction: affordable, mission-suitable, and easily mass-produced. While only three were on order, the Citadel Council had encouraged both member and associate races to step up by providing new construction facilities. As the premiere line of defense against extra-galactic threats, it would be advantageous to build as many of these ships as was possible.

Tali, Gaige, and their teams worked extremely hard to avoid "hindsight syndrome"—designing solutions which would win 100% of yesterday's battles, but had no claim against tomorrow's. The gigantic forward "super-Thanix" cannon incorporated lightning-gun tech, superlaser tech, and the base Thanix. It would be a much simpler way to destroy Reapers, or any other heavily armored, shielded target for that matter. Some theorized it might be able to rip open space itself at a high enough power setting. The fixed, forward-facing weapon had a limiter placed on it (~65% of theoretical energy) as a result. Though one initial design rule was "no more fixed, forward-facing weapons," no one seemed to mind since the vessel's armament was not solely tied up in the "F3W" the way _Infinities_ were.

Sam wandered into engineering. Unlike the quad-core Tantalus systems of her last ship, _Revenant Phoenix_ had a pair of "eezo channeling" cores built into its primary hyperdrive. They ran front-to-back along a cylindrical hybrid hyperdrive which followed the ship's centerline. The whole assembly glowed an eerie, bloody red. It also produced enough power to run the ship three times over due to incredibly energy-dense hypermatter annihilation. Downsizing the core brought no benefits, so designers left in a massively overpowered heart, in the hopes that some future development might find a use for all the energy. In case of catastrophic overload, braces permitted the whole thing to be ejected in less than five seconds. Hopefully, she wouldn't have to dump the power core—she'd seen enough of that in omnitool vids like "Persephone's Predators." It always ended badly.

"Commander Shepard" would now be uttered by a crew of several hundred—smaller than the complement of an _Infinity_ but significantly more compared to an Alliance (or Cerberus) frigate. When she found out about EDI, a fresh wave of pain flowed through the still-recovering Spectre. She (not "it") had been as much a member of the crew as any flesh-and-blood, providing key intel at just the right moment on several occasions. Once First Flight reached a stage where it could be openly acknowledged, Sam planned to hold a ceremony honoring both Lilith Cashlin and EDI, anti-synthetic prejudices be damned. It might also help win peace with the geth…

It just wouldn't be the same. Though the Trans-Galactic Republic remained freakishly advanced, their insistence on silent, "dumb" ships made her feel sad for them.

Still, the primary armament of this ship was, as Lilith might say, "the tits." Variable Munition Mass Drivers borrowed Citadel-native technology, flinging tiny particles at huge speeds for massive damage. In Fusion mode, slightly larger pellets were used as ammo—these were specialized and limited compared to nearly-infinite standard fare. In exchange for a lower fire rate and shorter effective range, these pellets were essentially bombarding enemies with tiny suns—bringing the pellet into a state of fusion, then hurling it out of the barrel at extreme velocities. Hence all the fuss about inertial confinement lasers. These were part of an optional stage—just before any "special" effects would be applied. While both types of munition could be fired through the same barrel, fusion could _not_ be combined with corrosion, fire, or electric shock.

The turrets themselves contained a fast-track mechanism which in theory enabled them to target small craft—though at the expense of only being able to fire "standard" shots. Besides, actually having dedicated point-defense systems was a hallmark of the class compared to its predecessors, so this ability would likely not be tested excepting very trying circumstances.

Since the Trans-Galactic Republic was integrally involved in the ship's design, it maintained some of the comforts that Systems Alliance, Hierarchy, Union, or other Citadel forces could only dream of on home-built vessels. Crewmen had assigned berths (no hot-bunking), ration quality drastically improved, and leisure facilities were expanded. For instance, an omnitool library, small movie theater, shockball suite, and swimming pool were all built into the vessel's interior.

"Well, let's see how they did on the most important part of the ship" she said to no one in particular as the door to her cabin opened.

She took quick stock. Large work area (since being in charge of a ship meant lots of bureaucracy), a sitting space, a dining table with optional view outside… "Damn, no fish tank" she muttered. Apparently, the architect(s) responsible for her cabin maintained the same sense of humor as Alliance and Cerberus before them—the shower (or "refresher," as the Trans-Galactic Republic called it) was right behind her desk. Translation: You are going to spend so much time there that you might as well have your 'fresher right next to you.

A look of childish delight crossed her face as she realized there were no display cases for the ship models she enjoyed collecting and assembling. No cases meant she could finally achieve a long-held dream of having the models simply float around the cabin on miniature eezo cores. The tiny ships would auto-adhere themselves to suitable surfaces if the _Revenant Phoenix_ went into battle, just as the skylight and dining-table window armor plate auto-closed in such a circumstance.

Sam Shepard lay back on her bed. The skylight at the moment showed a sickly greenish hue, patches of green interspersed with white and black. The official reason was that light normally blue in regular hyperspace travel slightly redshifted from the vastly increased speeds of a hyper-zero drive. She'd once looked at the math behind it, realized it made her head hurt, and turned to other tasks. Still, the light was soothing to her, so she left the armor plate retracted.

For the first time she could remember in years, Samantha Shepard drifted off into peaceful sleep.


	12. We Are Your Team

**Chapter 12 – We Are Your Team**

"Again?" sighed a Citadel traffic controller. "Just once, I'd like to go through my shift without something weird happening!"

None had been briefed regarding the new type of sensor readings accompanying hyper-zero transits. Thus, weird sensor readings flummoxed Citadel Control until the ship provided its authorization codes.

"Those people and their fancy ships…"

"Commander Shepard, we have arrived at the Citadel."

_Beats an obnoxious blaring alarm_ she thought. _Still…_ Her chest tightened as she thought of EDI again. The voice modulator sounded similar to EDI, which made it more painful. She dragged herself out of bed and into her uniform. The new, less fascist-oriented alliance between Citadel and Trans-Galactic Republic (dubbed "CRITICAL"—Citadel-Republic Integration and Cooperation Alliance) showed itself in the selection of a base color other than black. A return to traditional navy blue (_navy, hah!_) with white accents became the expected dress. The one feature she'd liked about her last uniform was that it was far more flattering—this was pure utilitarian stamped to one-size-fits-everyone-meeting-a-crude-measurement rather than being custom-tailored. Of course, that it came alongside a military dictatorship and insane flag officer kind of made it lose its appeal, though she did see how it might be incorporated into some, ahem, exercises, if she ever found anyone out here in the vastness of space…

Had Shepard known precisely what was scheduled upon her departure from _Revenant Phoenix_, she would have cursed her decision to spend so much time getting into dress blues. Whisked off to the Huerta Memorial Hospital's Advanced Treatments Wing, she was immediately removed from her uniform by several synthetics.

"You better not be recording this."

"Six Four Cee medical droids are specifically prohibited by programming from taking any imagery without the patient's express consent" replied one of the units in a surprisingly human-like tone.

Over the brief time she spent at Huerta's Advanced Treatments Wing, she came to realize something else. The Trans-Galactic Republic had no issues whatsoever with synthetics, or "droids" as they were called. Many of these droids possessed enough sapience programming that they could conspire, rebel, and kill the organics which controlled them. Droids were even "owned" and treated as property. Yet, death-by-droid was a relatively rare occurrence, and when it did happen it tended to be accidental or the result of an illegal assassin unit.

The medical droids were respectful, professional, and highly competent—assisting the Commander in entering a bacta tank where her shoulder would, essentially, fix itself.

"You will be immersed for three" _pause_ "Citadel-standard" _pause_ "hours."

_Apparently Trans-Galactic Republic timekeeping isn't exactly the same as ours._ For some reason, she'd never been compelled to learn this difference during the Reaper War—probably because the primary concern was not on timekeeping but "kill as many Reapers as possible." It was also highly likely that computers were set to auto-adjust for important maneuvers or fleet coordinations. While the Citadel used sensible divisions of time (100 seconds per minute, 100 minutes per hour, 20 hours per day—years excepted as they were 343.97 days long due to politics) the Trans-Galactic Republic utilized a different standard. Converting between the two was a mess—60 seconds per Trans-Galactic Republic minute, 60 minutes per Trans-Galactic Republic hour, and 24 hours per Trans-Galactic Republic day. Their years were the exception to the nonsensical rule—exactly 365 days per Trans-Galactic Republic year. Never mind that a Citadel second was 66% of a Trans-Galactic Republic second.

At least everyone used metric.

She then spent some period of time (she stopped counting or caring) submerged in a translucent blue liquid—bacta. At its highest potency such as that which Shepard convalesced in, minor injuries healed in less than a half hour. Her shoulder reoriented and put itself back together in two hours.

Pulled from the tank while being subjected to an extensive drying process (bacta could be and was recycled, especially at this high of concentration), she felt relief wash over herself.

_I'm free_.

No more reminders of what she'd turned into under the command of Xytler—_That bastard! I'd space him if I got the chance_.

Her shoulder worked just fine. No therapy required.

"No wonder people kill for this stuff" she whispered. "It's almost magical!"

This time, no unnecessary dress-up. Wearing utility pants and a basic short-sleeved shirt with a faded "N7" logo emblazoned on it, she headed to the next stop on her itinerary.

At the Kaiden Alenko Banquet Hall, a large establishment built on the Presidium in the aftermath of Virmire, she found herself denied entry.

"You're Commander Shepard?" demanded a bored-looking turian bouncer whose helmet concealed his face.

"Yes…"

"Prove it."

She then found herself barraged with questions like an interrogation. Growing tired of it, she finally lost control. "Let me in, or I'm going to knock you flat on your ass" she hissed.

"Well, I just have one more thing to say…" The turian removed his helmet.

The doors opened on their own.

"Surprise!"

Samantha Shepard put her head in her hands. Leave it to Garrus Vakarian to punk her so hard—_he is going down next time we hit the shooting range_.

"We were taking bets on how long you'd put up with that" laughed Miranda.

Grunt sidled over, as much as a massive reptilian could "sidle."

"I'm disappointed I didn't get to see my Battlemaster add to her total of enemies brutally destroyed. You also caused me to lose a bet!" he roared. "Now I have to take two shots of ryncol. Not that it's too much of a loss…"

"Garrus isn't really an enemy, Grunt, no matter how annoying he was…"

He disappeared back to the bar.

Seeing two figures at a table toward the back, Shepard nearly fell over in shock. Former Councilor Sparatus, one of the biggest pains in her side since Udina, chatting with none other than David Anderson.

She headed in that direction until she found herself intercepted by a gaggle of teenagers crowding around Jack and Brick.

"Well, at least they can stop asking me 'What's the Commander really like?'" Jack imitated an unreasonably childish-sounding voice for the last part. "This new batch has only heard stories about you—mostly good ones…"

"Not all" boomed Brick. "Especially the time you made fun of the Council in person!"

Several students activated omni-tools to play back the infamous video.

"Now now, wait" Jack bid her students to stop. "That's really not fair to the Commander…" The smirk on her face suggested she had something in mind, but Shepard had no clue what until a huge holo-projector popped out of the floor in the middle of the hall.

"R-R-R-R-Reaper problem!" blared out of a device normally used to show off sales charts.

Cue Shepard facepalm.

"I'm never going to live that down, am I?" she sighed.

"Hey, at least you didn't get your breakfast stolen!"

"James! What are you doing here?" She tried to run, but her legs insisted on walking.

Grinning deviously, one of Jack's students surreptitiously loaded a different video into the projector.

"I'm sort of an Interplanetary Combatives Training consultant for these students" began James Vega. "In fact, I…"

He ran to the holotank to try to shut it off, but Brick, looking somber as if someone had just died, impeded him.

"It's only fair" he insisted.

"No one's cooler than me!" bellowed Jack's voice from behind the tank of a man. "Who's my badass biotic? Who's my badass biotic?"

"Is that…what I think it is?" questioned Sam.

"You know, I was going to play _your_ video to get these punks to stop playing mine" answered James. "But you were kind of dead, so it would've been uncool."

"Did you just get your breakfast stolen by a _biotic varren_?" She thought she'd seen everything. Apparently not, as the projected animal tackled James for the second time and began furiously licking him, smearing the eggs it had managed to steal all over their former owner's face.

"Yeah…"

Jack returned. "See, this little…jerk…(her eyes twitched) thought he was cooler than me with the students. That's total bull…poop. So I had to teach him a lesson!"

"_You rigged my shower to use toilet water!" _bellowed the N7 consultant.

"Only because you left a surprise in my eggs. After talking about how great your _huevos rancheros_ (she deliberately accented and emphasized the phrase) are, you slip me a pill in my breakfast that makes me…crap…glitter for _two days!_"

"Uhh, guys? I think we're supposed to be eating" interrupted Sam Shepard. Toilet humor had a place—specifically, not here.

"Well, some of us, anyway."

"Tali!"

"The dextro selection here is a bit thin" opined Garrus. "Only three types of cheese…"

"Oh I'm sorry, _turian stud_, was this not enough variety for you? Let me remind you: _you already ate one type of sausage entirely by yourself…_"

Sam Shepard hadn't really met Athena before. "I'm the one who looks over your shoulder. And yes," she grinned, "I do read all those forms you submit."

"Uhh, Garrus, is there yet another thing I'm not aware of?" Leave it to socially-inept Garrus to introduce a girlfriend this way.

"No—it's kind of a long story" he replied.

"And if you don't like toilet jokes, you definitely wouldn't want to hear this at your party either" finished Athena. "We'll tell you later."

"As much as I like blowing things up with you" (Wrex had managed to appear out of nowhere, a difficult feat for a krogan), "some of us can't come with when you leave on another grand adventure. But we're here for you anyway. Couldn't let that pyjack have all the fun."

Wrex slapped Mordin on the back, hard. _He must have picked up that gesture from a human somewhere. He's close to a thousand, right?_

"Shepard. Progress. Will relax restrictions on leg usage. Jack insists."

"Damn straight! We're going to see if you're still as horrible at dancing as you used to be." Somehow the "psychotic biotic" managed to ditch her charges who ordinarily followed her like a herd of puppies.

Jerking her head toward James Vega, seated at a large table surrounded by students, she commented "He started telling another one of his outlandish stories. I think Rodriguez has the hots for him—she hangs on to every word."

Garrus leaned against a wall and was swapping combat sagas with Axton and Mordecai. Their tales about epic headshots, last-bullet-survival, and general badassery got more and more insane until Garrus found himself floating in a purple bubble.

"Nice try, if you're going to tell elaborate stories about liberating Pandora, make sure you were actually there."

With a satisfied wave of her hand, Maya let the turian clatter to the floor, armor and all.

"You have a, a loose seam" he stammered to the Siren. These parties just kept producing more and more extranet-ready moments, and he was pretty sure he'd just been the victim of one. Shepard chanced a look—indeed, a thick black seam on the shoulder of Maya's bright yellow outfit had started to come apart.

"You want to undo the rest of them?" she replied, placing a hand seductively on her hip and letting a devilish smile play across her lips. If turians could blush, Garrus would likely have had a face redder than Wrex's normal skin color.

"Am I going to be the only one who gets through this party without making an ass out of themselves?" growled Zaeed. He didn't notice feverish whispering between Maya and Athena. The latter produced a rubber pouch of sorts. "You know, there was a high-class party I went to back on Bekenstein that got attacked by eco-terrorists bitching about how much energy this corrupt executive's house used. I was the only one who survived that—had to take a dive through his fish tank to avoid a gunship though. Never thought I'd have to clean fish guts off my rifle."

"And when the universe ends, you'll be the only one who lives through it" replied Shepard.

"Hell yeah!"

Zaeed could be grouchy, prickly, and even downright unpleasant. But Shepard had an unerring faith in people to do the right thing—and this trust paid off handsomely during the Collector Base assault. Along with the majority of her team, he'd held the line against an endless swarm of Collectors and their feral beasts. He claimed to have saved Garrus from a Praetorian single-handedly, a feat which the turian surprisingly didn't deny. Neither did anyone else present at the epic rearguarding that took place that day.

Tali, Gaige, and Kasumi were deep in a discussion about how to build even more dangerous weapons. Kasumi seemed to know far more than she should have about the details of Variable Munition Mass Drivers. Tali and Gaige studiously avoided the subject of how this was possible, especially considering some of the parts for said Variable Munition Mass Drivers had "appeared" under questionable circumstances at just the right moment.

"There are some things I'd rather not know" insisted Tali when Kasumi tried to offer a detailed explanation.

"So, Shep's back on her feet?" asked the wiry thief.

"Do I look like a zombie to you?" came the deadpan response. "I was only mostly dead this time."

"Welcome back to the world of the living" rasped an unmistakable voice. Thane Krios had been one of the first to be treated with bacta as a potential cure for Kepral's Syndrome. Though he had been given three months to live by a doctor nine months ago, his condition first stabilized then improved over the course of weeks.

"Sometimes, I feel as though this bacta might cause people to act in ways they wouldn't otherwise. Me, for example, I no longer maintain a rigorous breathing routine prior to…"

"Thane, if you start getting philosophical at my party I'm going to have to ask you to leave" said Sam with deadly seriousness. "There's a rule at a Back From the Dead celebration, you don't…" She picked up her drink again.

PBBBBBBTTTTTTTTTTT!

"What the hell?" Zaeed stood from his chair as if shot in the foot, glaring down at the now-deflated rubber pouch that Athena had stealthily placed on his chair while he had told his fish-tank-dive story.

"Tee hee" giggled Athena.

"Bought it at a human shop on the Citadel" explained Maya. "At least I'm not the only one who makes fart noises anymore."

"Oh no…" said an exasperated James. "I hope he likes kids…"

Several of the younger trainees had begun following Zaeed around, imitating the whoopee cushion he'd sat upon minutes before.

"He'll get rid of 'em" insisted Jack. "All he has to do is tell one story about being the only one to survive a mission in some shithole."

"Cha-ching!"

"Hey! Joker! Bite me!"

"See, ever since she went all responsible with the KOMBT School, she's had to clean up her vocabulary. Which means she lost half her normal words. If she had a swear jar, we could probably buy another one of those _Maxthon_ ships with it by now."

Jeff "Joker" Moreau cringed, expecting a reprisal.

"Joker, you're alright" replied the tattooed biotic. "But next time you take a crack at me, make sure you aren't copying insults from schoolchildren."

"Harsh" he replied. "You're not the only one with new legs around here" he continued, gesturing toward Samantha. "Those guys took one look at my Vrolik Syndrome and said 'We can fix that.' And they did! It only took them a couple hours of surgery and some special injections—now watch!"

"Unce! Unce! Unce!" He swung his hips and legs around in ways that would have made Karin Chakwas tackle him before (because that might actually have been less risky than letting him keep up the dancing).

"Do these new legs come with an affinity for beatboxing?" she wondered aloud. "Because that's exactly what I did…"

"Who cares?"

"I do" said Maya. "Reminds me of an obnoxious little robot from my home galaxy. So stop."

Joker froze.

"Oh no, not magic floaty lady who totally isn't a biotic…"

"Right, that means I can fling you around now" she said, completely serious and devoid of any humor. A savage smile lit the Siren's face. "You won't enjoy this!"

"Waaaaaaaaaaah!" Joker's feet left the ground as Maya lifted him several meters. She stood underneath him, smile becoming a pout with arms crossed. A few small flames licked around the edge of the sphere—but no full-on elemental assault. Maya had discovered she could control (somewhat) what types of properties her "phaselock" possessed. Made it infinitely more useful for pranking people, as jokes were slightly less funny when the target had been shocked, covered in acid, and lit on fire in addition to being lifted in the air.

"Be careful" scolded Miranda. She dropped into a biotic power-stance, pulling Joker free before helping him perform a soft landing. Mostly. Joker stuck the landing like a gymnast.

"See? Nothing broke!"

"Except my pride" he whispered to Shepard, before joining Grunt and Wrex at the bar.

Maya strode determinedly over to Miranda and whispered something in her ear. Miranda's expression changed from neutral to surprised to amused before she nodded her head in vigorous agreement. "He totally deserved it" she concluded.

Maya grinned to herself.

"Now that you can headbutt something without breaking your own neck" drawled Wrex, "We're going to have to take you to the range!"

"Alliance brass did say they'd prefer if I could pass combat proficiency tests now" he replied. "And if I have to blow things up, I'd rather do it with you two!"

"And Shepard" added Wrex.

"Wrex."

The response was stereo. A very loud stereo. "Shepard."

"You all know the stupid combat management displays we use don't accommodate four people" she lectured, as if speaking to recruits headed off to basic. Her drink sloshed a bit in her hand.

"My Battlemaster can win without one" insisted Grunt. "You have no equal."

"Is that a dare? You three, and me, in the Armax Arsenal Arena, this week!" Her face flushed red as she shook her fist in the general direction of the door.

"Done."

The ferocity of the two krogans' replies left her ears ringing.

"Shepard-Commander!"

"Legion? What would a geth want to do with organic parties?" Sam let her confusion show.

"We wish to learn more about organics, in particular the habit of ingesting mind-altering chemicals."

"Well" laughed Shepard, sipping her own "mind-altering chemical," "that might have something to do with it." She pointed toward James and Ashley, though telling which was which at this point would have been a challenge. Several empty bottles littered the table around them.

"The male is vocalizing the words 'tu con tantas curvas, y yo sin frenos,' while the female is encouraging him to repeat it. Their breathing is heavier than normal for organics…"

"Get a room!" bellowed Shepard. Noticing their Commander had a goofy smile plastered on her face, they ignored her and continued.

"We are noticing increased blood flow to your face as well as the area between your legs" continued the geth, apparently unaware of how awkward its continued clinical observations made the situation. "We suggest…"

"Legion! Seriously! Cut it out!" She staggered.

"We have observed that you have consumed ten different containers of liquid, most registering above twelve percent alcohol by volume. We believe your judgment is impaired."

Sam vaguely remembered Mordin saying something along the lines of "Restraints removed, will check on you tomorrow. Filtration systems set to levels mimicking unaltered human body. Enjoy hangover" toward the beginning of the party.

"Ooooh, Sam's drunk!"

"Sheeeeeeepard" slurred a familiar voice. "You should try this. Emmmmmmmmergency induction port. Slows you dooooooooooown."

Tali slammed a glass with a garish yellow straw down on the table next to the tipsy Shepard. "We were toasting Ashley's success with James…"

Sam could hear cheers and chants as if she were wearing earmuffs. Her vision was hazy. She lurched her way to a table, before losing balance and crashing into something. Or things.

"Hey! Ocupado!" said a male voice.

"Get your own corner!" Followed shortly by an annoyed sounding "Ma'am."

Shepard crashed to the floor.

"Does it count as a threesome if she's passed out underneath us?"

[…]

_UUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH…_

She tried to open her eyes. They felt like the weight of a cruiser were holding them shut. Her head pounded, as if a baby krogan was loose inside. Sam rolled onto her stomach.

"Mmmmm. Cold pillow…"

Her brain slowly processed this new information. Somehow, she was now in a place other than the banquet hall. It was a bed, at least, not the floor. Whose bed, she wasn't sure. Her lower half ached as if Wrex had sat on her.

Her eyes snapped open, twitching and searching frantically.

_Whew_.

No one shared the bed with her and there was no indication anyone had before now.

She would later find out she'd stumbled over to Maya after being ejected from Ashley and James's corner ("If she's just laying there, it's not a threesome!").

"You're so preeeeeeeeeety" she slurred, reaching to stroke the woman's purple hair. Her speech noticeably slowed compared to normal. "We'll bang, okaaaaaaaay?"

"Ew" said the Siren. "You're drunk!"

"That only makes it more fuuuuuuuuuun" she protested. "Want to see my old uniform? We can roooooooleplay. I can be the captain, and you can serve under me."

Maya laughed awkwardly—it _was_ a good double entendre. "We need to get you out of here. I don't even want to know what I'd see if someone turned on the lights…"

"Mooooooooore of Ashley and Jaaaaaaaaaaaames than I'd want to know!"

She knew trying to talk to the Commander was likely pointless but kept it up anyway. "They left after they kicked you out of their corner. They did take your advice, though."

"I can put them both in for distinguished sssssseeeervice awards" drawled Shepard. "Or at least one of them…" She winked. Or blinked. Or both.

After hitting on Maya, she'd been levitated (by Maya-wingwoman of the _century_) into a hovercar, and an amused David Anderson had brought her to his apartment on the Wards near Silversun Strip to sleep off the _twelve_ hard liquors she'd ingested.

Forcing herself to rise, Sam Shepard stumbled out of the very comfortable king-size bed.

"Ah, Shepard. Must check implants."

"Mordin? Why are you here?"

"Ensuring no injuries."

Inhale.

"Enjoying hangover?"

_I'd kill him if he wasn't here to make this all go away._

"There's…there's an angry krogan stamping around in my head" she moaned. "Make him stop…"

"Can do that."

He pressed the mysterious black device against Sam's hip.

_BEEP. BEEPBEEP._

"Torque and horsepower limits reestablished. Filters reactivated, set to maximum."

"Uuuuuuughh…"

"Recommend eating breakfast. Most important meal!"

"Does that mean you're offering to make it?" said Shepard, hopeful.

"Would not enjoy salarian food. No ingredients here to make."

He appeared to be deep in thought, before speaking again. "Blood flow to lower parts" (inhale) "optimal."

"You didn't…Mordin…ew…"

"Scanned you upon arrival yesterday. Had to ensure no alcohol poisoning."

"What happened yesterday?" She still felt groggy, though the filters were already having an effect.

"Suggest speaking to Legion. Perfect memory. Low-light vision. Can detail all events. Must leave. Genophage cure well on way. Undoing my mistakes…"

Sam seated herself at the kitchen bar/table. Admiral Anderson walked in, leading her to trip on herself trying to both stand up and salute.

"At ease—no uniform, no salute! That was one hell of a night, Shepard."

"Aaaaargh. So I've been told." She continued moaning in pain.

"Would you like to eat first, or would you like to hear from Legion?" Anderson gestured at the geth, standing off to the side of the kitchen.

"Shepard-Commander. We recommend prioritizing consuming nutrients given your current physiology. We will wait."

"I want three eggs, over-easy, with rye toast and raspberry jam" she groaned. "And don't you dare serve me crispy bacon."

"I'm…not much of a cook. I can do scrambled, and I have wheat toast" replied Anderson. "I can keep the bacon chewy—I don't understand why people like it crispy, to be honest."

"Good." Sam's forehead hit the table.

Once Anderson returned with the food, she made an effort to sit up and look presentable. She looked down at herself.

_Real smooth, Commander. If anyone saw this…_

The word "LONDON" adorned her chest. She never understood women who wore shirts that had words in the general vicinity of their breasts, then complained if someone tried to read those words. Still… _Plaid_ pants? _Really? _she thought, grimacing at Anderson's pajama bottoms which were the wrong size.

"Don't worry, Sam—I won't tell anyone." He winked.

"Very funny, sir."

After that, conversation mostly revolved around First Flight.

"Are you disappointed they didn't offer you your Council seat back?"

"Not having to think about that was the best thing that could have happened to me" said Anderson. "I hated being stuffed in that room with career politicians who were more worried about what their public images looked like than the results of their policies."

"Besides" he continued "Grayson is good at this stuff, whether he wants to admit it or not. Sure, the last Trans-Galactic Republic technological rollout was a bit…messy…but the Reapers were knocking down our front door. Trillions of lives were saved! And the ruinous rule of the United Defense Command is washing away as we speak."

"What about the Federated Cluster Union and Local Cluster Council? I thought they banned intergalactic travel, and here we are, giving that ban a gigantic middle finger."

"Grayson asked me about that before he formally accepted the position of Councilor. I told him it probably didn't matter. As was pointed out in the past, there's no 'Federated Cluster Union Navy,' so if whoever they are don't like it, too bad."

"Unless they send in something even worse than the Reapers…"

"Don't even say it" laughed the Admiral. "I'm sure if that happened you'd be right out in front fighting with everything you have."

"True that" replied Shepard. "Besides, that's why we are building these 'Maxthon' ships—in case someone else shows up uninvited. Maybe we should put out a big 'Unwelcome' mat."

"You'd need a postscript—'Except the Trans-Galactic Republic'" said Anderson.

"Of course. Somehow, they've been both the worst and best thing to happen to this galaxy in the past few years. On one hand, we fell into totalitarian military government, but we also defeated the Reapers. Suddenly, the drell and krogan are viable species again. Peace between the geth and quarians is just one Shepard shouting match away from reality!"

She smiled, something Anderson hadn't seen much of in a long time.

"Speaking of geth, I'd be interested in finding out what the damage was from last night."

"Me too." Anderson motioned for her to join him at his coffee table. Legion stood by the window.

"Shepard-Commander. You wish to hear about the events of the past twenty standard hours."

"Please, Legion. Start from the beginning."

"Your arrival at the gathering caused much excitement among the organics present. Many engaged in celebratory behaviors such as holding beverages above their heads and touching the edges of beverage containers together."

"It's called a toast, Legion." Again, Shepard seemed genuinely happy. Anderson relaxed a bit.

"Earlier in your exchange with Admiral Anderson, you used the word 'damage.' Do you wish us to only relay information about activities which caused physical destruction?"

"I guess. Sure." She didn't need extreme mathematician descriptions of absolutely everything.

"The first incident of damage occurred when the human Ensign Catalina Rodriguez attempted to perform aerobics on a table surface. We surmise she was attempting to gain the attention of James Vega."

"Ooookay." Eyes rolled. "Hot for teacher, huh? Did the students do anything else?"

"Clarification required: the actions of the students from the Kinetic-Oriented Multiple Belligerent Training School did not cause significant amounts of damage to either others present or property belonging to the Kaiden Alenko Banquet Hall other than that already described. Are you requesting additional information regarding the behavior of these students?"

Sam grinned. "Let's put it this way. Did they do anything that caused Jack or Brick to yell at them?"

"There were several incidences of Jack elevating her voice which were directed at the students."

"The first being the table?"

"Yes."

"What else?" Shepard leaned forward. She wanted to hear what she'd missed.

"The students engaged in an activity called 'Truth or Dare.' We observed that this form of entertainment involves…"

A hand went up. "Thanks, Legion, I already know what that is."

"Understood. The students were verbally disciplined because many of the items categorized as 'dare' required them to perform actions designed to provoke others at the gathering."

"For example?"

"One 'dare' required a student to make an attempt to remove the weapon carried by those providing security for the event without being detected. The attempt failed, and the student was forcibly restrained by security personnel until Brick explained the situation."

Suddenly, Sam had a thought. "Oh, _shit…_ Please tell me most of these students were of the legal drinking age!"

"Shepard-Commander, the individuals responsible for providing the liquid mind-altering chemicals were instructed to provision all who requested a serving without verifying eligibility to receive the substance. Due to this instruction, the age of the students is irrelevant to the question of whether they consumed these chemicals."

"So we permitted underage drinking…"

"We believe this is most likely the case."

David Anderson took on a look of concern. "Shepard, if we…their parents…"

"Hey!" She put her hands up in a symbol of defense. "I didn't organize this shindig!"

"We consider the consumption of the beverages, which we believe you refer to as 'alcohol,' to be partially to fully responsible for certain student behaviors. Addendum: These beverages did not consist of pure alcohol. Such a liquid would…"

"_I know._ Get on with the story!"

_Geth are horrible storytellers_.

"The human Jack also ordered the students to cease and desist from certain other behaviors. In one case, a number of students requisitioned a rectangular table. Beverage containers were set upon it at each end, forming a triangular pattern. The containers were filled with alcoholic beverages. The objective appeared to be…"

"…beer pong" interrupted Shepard. "They were playing beer pong."

"Jack did not object to the activity as we have described it. She became angry when students began removing articles of clothing."

Sam's mouth dropped open in shock. "_They were playing strip-beer-pong?"_

"If you are referencing the designated loser of each round of the activity being asked to remove a piece of clothing, that statement is correct."

She couldn't say anything.

"We believe the Commander to be unaware of this activity or the altercation which resulted from it. At the time of the event, we observed you interacting with Creator Tali'Zorah, Kasumi Goto, and the extra-galactic human Gaige. Addendum: The human named Gaige seems to possess no second part to her designation, which appears unusual among humans."

"What other things got destroyed besides the innocence of a few students?"

"During the period of time in which the Commander observed the courtship and mating ritual of Ashley Williams and James Vega, the two krogan began to have a contest which involved firing weapons at empty beverage containers lined up at the location where beverages were served from."

Facepalm for more than one reason. "So they were having a shooting contest?"

"The purpose appeared to be to establish dominance by demonstrating superior accuracy."

"They must have broken something, right?"

"Affirmative. Several times, due to the nature of organic eyesight in low-illumination conditions, projectiles discharged from their weapons failed to impact the intended target. These occurrences resulted in the destruction of several beverage bottles located behind the serving structure. The majority of these bottles were located on the highest and second highest storage levels."

"Oh my god, they shot up top-shelf liquor!"

"We did observe an altercation between the elder krogan and one of the individuals responsible for provisioning alcoholic beverages. The human demanded the krogan produce a sum of seven thousand, six hundred, twenty two credits in compensation for destruction of property. The elder krogan, which you have referred to as 'Wrex' refused. Wrex vocalized a desire to physically consume the human if he did not desist from his demand. The human ceased to communicate with both krogan and relocated. He placed as much distance between himself and the krogan as was physically possible while remaining able to serve beverages."

She didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Maybe both. Anderson grinned. "That's not the first time he's tried to eat his way out of something, is it?"

"Noveria" replied Shepard.

"Did I do anything…interesting?" continued the Commander.

"Following your failed attempt to become physically intimate with the Siren called Maya, you approached the human called Athena. According to our scans, this human had consumed a large number of alcoholic beverages as well…"

"Wait, stop!" shouted Sam. "Did I have more than her?"

"Shepard-Commander consumed twelve beverages. Athena consumed eight."

"YES!" She pumped a fist, pointedly on the formerly-lame side of her body.

"What happened next?" She resumed a more conversational tone.

"Based on our observation of organic behavior at this event, you attempted to initiate physical intimacy with Athena as well. You placed your mouth against hers for a significant length of time. From our readings of various erogenous zones, both parties to the transaction became sexually aroused during the time your mouths were in contact."

Sam didn't want to know how a geth knew she was horny. So she said nothing and let Legion continue.

"You attempted to place your hand on the back portion of her body joining the leg to the torso. Athena responded by encircling the joint between your head and shoulders with her arm. At this time, the Siren Maya used her ability, addendum: no data available on the subject of this ability, to forcibly separate Shepard-Commander from Athena. We believe we detected words spoken when this occurred."

A distorted, heavily processed recording played out of Legion. It was Sam's voice alright, twisted and contorted to compensate for the noise of the party and distance between Legion and the Commander.

"I kissed a girl, and I LIKED IT!"

Sam just sat shaking her head.

"You are aware of the sequence of events which followed. You were placed in a hovercar and brought to this dwelling."

"Do you know if there was a monetary value placed on the events of the evening?" She didn't want to know the answer, but she had to ask.

"We are including all purchases of beverages, solid consumables, and the demand by the human to Wrex for compensation for destruction of property. This demand was not met by the krogan. Total calculated value in denominations used by organic society on the Citadel reached three hundred forty five thousand six hundred ninety two credits."

"And…" she began, "who paid?" Her breath caught. The Systems Alliance wouldn't comp for alcohol (and didn't need to know about underage drinking)…

"Prior to her departure, the human Kasumi Goto produced a credit voucher in an extremely large denomination. Several humans and one batarian responsible for providing security at the gathering conducted several tests against the voucher to verify its authenticity. The voucher was accepted as valid."

A/N: This is basically "Mass Effect Fanservice and Inside Jokes: The Chapter. Read that like "Spaceballs: The [Insert Thing]" and you'll get an idea of how that sounds in my head. I put this note at the end to avoid spoiling it.


End file.
